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 (Walkabout, The Man Who Fell to Earth) was provisionally attached to the project in the late 1970s ...

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 ...

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' ...

Saul at the Adelaide Festival, Which Way Home, Laughter 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 ...

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 ...

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 ...

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 ...

In his introduction to the Folio Society edition of Twelfth Night, Peter Hall describes the play as a transitional work. Moving on from the light-heartedness of A Midsummer Night's Dream, in Twelfth Night Shakespeare mixes grief and cruelty in with the comedy. We are advancing towards ...

Bravo ABC, Mike Parr at the NGA, Amanda Joy and Paul Hetherington at Winter Arts 2016, After Shakespeare, 'Ball of Wax', Robert Alagna, and giveaways from the Sydney Symphony Orchestra and Melbourne Opera ...

With a needle on cloth, Mary Jane Hannaford preserved her sharp observations of people as stout appliquéd figures set amidst interpretative renditions of Australian animals. Late in life she embroidered favourite verses and slyly captioned her pictures in quilts for her family. Close to one hundred ...