Peter Rose
In 2001 Peter Rose became the Editor of Australian Book Review. Previously he was a publisher at Oxford University Press. He has published several books of poetry, an award-winning family memoir, Rose Boys, and two novels, the most recent being Roddy Parr (Fourth Estate, 2010). His latest poetry collections are Rag (Gazebo Books, 2023) and Attention, Please! (Pitt Street Poetry, February 2025). His extensive criticism appears in a variety of publication, including ABR. Rose writes and performs short absurdist plays with The Highly Strung Players.
The gestation of Harold Pinter’s fearsome, hilarious plays was often as interesting as his celebrated dramatic pauses. Betrayal, from 1978, is a good example. Though Pinter was then engaged in an affair with Lady Antonia Fraser that would end his marriage to Vivien Merchant – Pinter’s muse and the creator of many of his great female characters – Betrayal was prompted (the MTC program tells ... (read more)
‘In my Eden a person who dislikes Bellini has the good manners not to get born,’ wrote W.H. Auden in his poem ‘Vespers’ (1954). Like much of Auden’s table-talk, this may seem rather extreme, but those who attended last Thursday’s concert version of Vincenzo Bellini’s I Puritani may have gone away with similarly exclusive thoughts.
Though it was a cold night in Melbourne, Hamer Hall ... (read more)
Our European summer holiday began in Munich – surprisingly cold and drizzly – perfect weather for long sessions in the Alte Pinakothek. This is one of the more forbidding of the great galleries, with its battered façade showing all the evidence of extensive bombing during World War II and a utilitarian rebuilding by Hans Döllgast in the 1950s.
Once past the desolate foyer, the visitor is ... (read more)
Opera Australia’s autumn season in Melbourne with two revivals – one very familiar; the other in its second season, and its first on the bigger Melbourne stage. Each, responsibly, is on a Monday, not always guaranteed to draw a large audience, but the capacious State Theatre was well attended for the first offering, Madama Butterfly.
Moffatt Oxenbould’s production of Giacomo Puccini’s op ... (read more)
I am often approached by young writers and reviewers. In many cases we offer them work, all part of ABR’s openness to new creative and critical talent. Two things often strike me during conversations with new contributors. First, they never raise the subject of money. Such is their reticence that I now make it clear at the outset that ABR pays for everything it publishes (print or online). My vi ... (read more)
Aida () is one of the great contradictory operas: grandiose in effect yet intimate in emotional content. How such an imperial chamber piece would translate onto a harbour in front of thousands of people and sundry camels remained to be seen. It was an ambitious but possibly inevitable choice for the fourth of the Handa Operas on Sydney Harbour, presented by Opera Australia.
Aida was Giuseppe Verd ... (read more)
Hamer Hall seemed close to full for the first of two performances of Hector Berlioz’s The Damnation of Faust by Melbourne Symphony Orchestra. It was the first time in twenty years that the orchestra has performed the work. As is often the case, this was a concert version. Full productions are not unknown, but they are scarce.
In 1845 Berlioz had orchestrated a famous Hungarian national tune. In ... (read more)
January 21
I am roaring through Edmund White’s memoir of his Paris years (Inside a Pearl: My Years in Paris), much better than his New York memoir (City Boy). But there is a problem: one doesn’t believe a word he writes. His is possibly the laziest approach to autobiography. Still, this one is reasonably entertaining.
January 24
Lunch at KereKere with my old friend and colleague Brian McFar ... (read more)
Scottish director David McVicar’s importance to Opera Australia – after his acclaimed Don Giovanni in 2014 – grows with this new production of his Covent Garden Faust, which is currently being seen in Sydney. The production dates back to 2004. The London opening night, which I attended, was a starry occasion, with Antonio Pappano in the pit and five internationally renowned principals: Rober ... (read more)