To celebrate the year’s memorable plays, films, television, music, operas, dance, and exhibitions, we invited a number of arts professionals and critics to nominate their favourites.  

Anna Goldsworthy

Three piano recitals for me this year, speaking to the dazzling possibilities of this instrument. In March, as part of the Adelaide Festival’s Daylight Express series, Anthony Romaniuk roamed between grand piano, electric keyboard, and harpsichord in Elder Hall for a kaleidoscopic program spanning from the sixteenth century to Ligeti, and Romaniuk’s own improvisations. It was masterfully curated and vividly performed, offering one possible version of the future of the piano recital. Angela Hewitt stepped out onto that same stage in a gold lamé gown and capelet, performing Mozart, Bach, Handel, and Brahms to a sold-out audience, with her signature dynamism and unruffability (reviewed in ABR Arts, 10/24). It felt like a throwback to the golden age of Margaret Farren-Price’s Impresaria series at Melba Hall. Later that same week, Olli Mustonen joined brilliant colleagues from Europe and Australia for performances of Grieg and his own compositions at Ukaria. Mustonen has a visceral approach to pianism and is a singular compositional voice. For this small captive audience of Adelaide Hills dwellers and chamber-music enthusiasts, it was a revelation.

 Angela Hewitt

Diane Stubbings

It will be a long time before I forget MTC’s musical adaptation of My Brilliant Career (ABR Arts, 11/24), one of those rare examples of a theatre production where every element comes together so perfectly that a special alchemy takes place. It won’t be long before its star, Kala Gare, is poached by Broadway or the West End. MTC gave us another winner with Topdog/Underdog (ABR Arts, 8/24). On paper this was a risky production, but with two remarkable performances (Damon Manns and Ras-Samuel), and meticulous direction by Bert LaBonté, it was one of the most staggering and visceral productions of the year. NTLive’s The Motive and the Cue – Jack Thorne and Sam Mendes’s homage to the Burton/Gielgud Hamlet of 1964 – not only celebrated the singular chemistry created when an actor meets a part, it was also a strikingly astute reading of Shakespeare’s play. Special mention to Melbourne’s Red Stitch Theatre, whose superb production of Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? (ABR Arts, 7/24) had a well-earned revival. Two works directed for the theatre by Gary Abrahams – Iphigenia in Splott and A Case for the Existence of God (ABR Arts, 4/24) – showed the extraordinary range and power of this ‘little’ theatre’s work.