German playwright Frank Wedekind (1864–1918) was one of those rare artists whose work lies at the nexus of several major movements – in his case expressionism, modernism, and epic theatre – while never quite conforming to strict definitions of what those movements have come to mean ...

Co-Opera’s Eugene Onegin and Various People’s Orpheus Underground, both of which played in Adelaide in early May, provided a study in contrasts. Tchaikovsky’s great opera (first performed in 1879) has toured to the eastern states and country South Australia, an ambitious undertaking ...

Such was the international success of this double bill that both works were performed together at the Princess Theatre in Melbourne in September 1893 – Pagliacci less than sixteen months after its world première in Milan. Impresario George Musgrove even secured the original Canio ...

In this fortnight's Update: Vale Michael Gurr, The Pearlfishers and Patrick Nolan at OperaQ, Shrine at fortyfivedownstairs, Sydney Writers' Festival, Isaac Drandic, Aardman Animations at ACMI, Rory Jeffes, Madman acquires Garage Entertainment, and a giveaway from fortyfivedownstairs ...

After the recent appearance of Joshua Bell and the Academy of St Martin in the Fields in Sydney, the next visitors to the Sydney Opera House in the World Orchestras Program were the Hong Kong Philharmonic under conductor Jaap van Zweden, with violinist Ning Feng ...

In the last seventy days of Vincent van Gogh’s short life, he painted seventy paintings. His intense life as an artist lasted for a single decade, from the age of twenty-seven to thirty-seven. Before that he had been, variously, a trainee preacher, an evangelist to miners, a labourer, and an ...

Vincenzo Bellini – fresh from the success of I Capuleti e Montecchi in Venice – spent the July and August of 1830 on Lake Como biding his time. He was struck by the folk songs of the female workers at the textile mills as they made their way home. These idylls were to flavour his ...

In 1980, Brett Whiteley completed his famous portrait of Patrick White, Patrick White at Centennial Park 1979–1980, disagreements over which caused a terminal rupture in the friendship between the two men. Of his intentions for the painting Whiteley said ...

Ah, Will Eno. The poet of the people, chronicler of twenty-first century angst, humorist, satirist, famously labelled ‘a Samuel Beckett for the Jon Stewart generation’, is back in dazzling form. The Realistic Joneses showcases Eno to the power of ten as he holds up a mirror to ...

In this fortnight's Update: Once in Royal David's City, Anna Netrebko, Melbourne International Jazz Festival, Hong Kong Philharmonic, Clunes Booktown, Awakening at fortyfivedownstairs, Blood and guts, Noel Tovey at La Mama, Pulitzer and Man Booker Prize winners in Adelaide, Ian Potter Cultural Trust, SALA’s twentieth anniversary, and giveaways from the Hong Kong Philharmonic and fortyfivedownstairs.