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Recent reviews

Film  |  Theatre  |  Art  |  Opera  |  Music  |  Television  |  Festivals

Welcome to ABR Arts, home to some of Australia's best arts journalism. We review film, theatre, opera, music, television, art exhibitions – and more. To read ABR Arts articles in full, subscribe to ABR or take out an ABR Arts subscription. Both packages give full access to our arts reviews the moment they are published online and to our extensive arts archive.

Meanwhile, the ABR Arts e-newsletter, published every second Tuesday, will keep you up-to-date as to our recent arts reviews.

 


Recent reviews

Monash's new performance art space, Eloquent singers galore, Australian World Orchestra turns five, Seraphim Trio plays Schubert, Tristan and Isolde in Tassie, 2010 and all that, and giveaways from Seraphim Trio and Universal Music ...

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The ending of the BBC 'mockumentary' sitcom, The Office (2001–03) was suitably cathartic. Its supporting protagonists, Tim Canterbury (Martin Freeman) and Dawn Tinsley (Lucy Davis), walked off into the sunset hand in hand to Yazoo's synth love-ballad 'Only You', and its central character ...

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Iron in the Blood is jazz musician Jeremy Rose's ambitious and heartfelt tribute to Robert Hughes's The Fatal Shore (1986). Although some academic historians may demur, The Fatal Shore remains a crucial book for understanding the brutality of Australia's colonial origins ...

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High Rise ★★

by
16 August 2016

High-Rise has been a long time coming to the cinema screen. J.G. Ballard's novel of the same name has been slated for adaptation almost since it was published in 1975: director Nicolas Roeg (WalkaboutThe Man Who Fell to Earth) was provisionally attached to the project in the late 1970s ...

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In 1852 Richard Wagner issued instructions to opera houses planning to stage Tannhäuser. It had closed after only four performances when it opened in Dresden in 1845 – conducted by the composer without most of the scenery, delayed in transport – but was now attracting wide attention. His essay ...

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As the director of The Caucasian Chalk Circle, Dr. Wang Xiaoying states, this Black Swan/National Theatre of China production collaboration is 'an ancient Chinese story, written by a classic German playwright, performed by an Australian troupe', and is a 'collision and fusion of different cultures' ...

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Saul at the Adelaide Festival, Which Way HomeLaughter and Tears, Gandel Philanthropy Funding for Multicultural Arts Victoria, Brahms and Bendix-Balgley at the ASO, Nijinsky, and a giveaway from Victorian Opera and Circus Oz ...

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Everyone loves a youth orchestra. All that young talent and enthusiasm oozing from the stage energises and captivates. An audience comprising a good number of proud parents and friends lends a sense of heightened anticipation ...

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Everyone agrees that the end of George Eliot's The Mill on the Floss is a disappointment. Suddenly and without much ceremony Eliot has Maggie Tulliver and her brother Tom drowned in a flood. It's a finale that has baffled and frustrated readers for more than a century and half. Can anything ...

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Why an A-Z of Brendel? Well, this is what the man himself has to say in the preface to his slim volume, A Pianist's A-Z: A piano lover's reader (2013): 'This book distils what, at my advanced age, I feel able to say about music, musicians, and matters of my pianistic profession ...

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