Table of contents for June 2025 in Limelight

Clive Paget Clive Paget is a former Limelight Editor, now Editor-at-Large, and a tour leader for Limelight Arts Travel. Based in London after three years in New York, he writes for The Guardian, BBC Music Magazine, Gramophone, Musical America and Opera News. Before moving to Australia, he directed and developed new musical theatre for London's National Theatre. Samuel Cairnduff Dr Samuel Cairnduff is a cultural management professional who runs the cultural leadership and communications consultancy RESONATE. He recently completed a PhD on Australian orchestras and lectures at both Melbourne and Monash universities. He also produces the Decoding Cultural Leadership podcast with Limelight. Steve Dow Steve Dow is the 2020 Walkley Arts Journalism Award recipient for his essay, profile and reportage portfolio. The Melbourne-born, Sydney-based arts writer's work also appears in…

If anybody knows how to die on stage, it's Dutch actor and singer Celinde Schoenmaker. As Fantine in the West End production of Les Misérables, she succumbed to tuberculosis after just 20 minutes. “It's a long time to wait to come back for the final scene,” she quips. Having been shot as Christine in Love Never Dies, she endured a death scene of truly operatic proportions – five minutes to be exact – but as she points out, “dying in Norm Lewis's arms is pretty nice.” As for battling leukaemia as Jenny Cavilleri in the musical Love Story, she simply says, “It was horrific.” Her role in the upcoming four-part WWII television series Truth & Conviction is no different. “It's a really beautiful story about a boy in Berlin who…

Royal Ballet and Opera, Covent Garden, London, 1 May The opening night may have been in London, but Barrie Kosky's new Royal Opera production of Wagner's Die Walküre has its roots firmly in Australia. The darkly dramatic smouldering trees, so hauntingly realised in Rufus Didwiszus’ austerely effective set designs, were inspired by a trip home that the director made when the country was suffering a particularly serious bushfire season. That the Earth has burned is in no doubt in Kosky's absorbing staging. Logs smoke, Wotan's spear is a charred branch and magic fire rages on every limb of the world ash tree as Brünnhilde is sealed inside the trunk for her long sleep. Post-apocalyptic or eco-centric Ring Cycles are not exactly new, but this one has the peculiarly haunting quality…

When the Sydney Chamber Choir presents its 50th-anniversary celebration concert this July, it will premiere five new works specially commissioned for the landmark occasion. One of these is by its former Artistic Director Paul Stanhope. Called We Might be Fifty, current Artistic Director Sam Allchurch describes it as “something that reflects Paul's relationship with the choir – a very tender piece about growing old together”. Entering its next half-century, the Sydney Chamber Choir continues to go from strength to strength with an inspiring and dedicated conductor now six years into his tenure taking it into the 21st century. The choir was formed in July 1975 as The University of Sydney Chamber Choir under Dr Nicholas Routley, who had arrived in Australia to take up a teaching position at the university.…

Wakefield Press, PB, 480pp, $49.99, ISBN 9781923042131 In his new biography of Dame Nellie Melba, Nellie Melba: The Legend Lives, author Richard Davis sets out to fill a void. While previous narratives have focused on Melba's life rather than her art, Davis aims to “provide more detail about Melba's voice, singing style and the musical milieu in which her career was conducted”. He draws on two primary sources – the 1909 publication Melba: A Biography, written by journalist and Melba's secretary Agnes G. Murphy, and Melba's autobiography Melodies and Memories from 1925, ghostwritten by her confidante Beverley Nichols. These two accounts are elaborated with content from an extensive bibliography of professional and personal material, including subsequent biographies of Melba, her granddaughter Pamela Vestey's 1996 book Melba: a family memoir and…

Paul Kildea [the Artistic Director of Musica Viva Australia] had been chatting with me for a while about a possible collaboration, and this was the one that materialised. I'm sure Paul had his reasons – maybe something to do with Johan and I both being relatively young and having similar musical interests. He seems to enjoy performing expressive, technically demanding music, and I enjoy writing it. The brief was spectacularly unspecific – just eight minutes for violin and piano. I think there was mention of a preference for virtuosity, though I remember them quickly backtracking for fear of stepping on my toes. But a virtuosic piece is what they got – a lot of notes! I didn't have any direct conversations with Johan and Jennifer, but I did listen to…

Boldness is a description often applied to the theatrical choices of Sydney-born director and lighting designer Alexander Berlage. He cuts a fine Wildean silhouette now in rounded spectacles and orange jacket at a café in Sydney's Surry Hills, his friendly, five-year-old female French bulldog, Panda, by his side as he discusses Spanish film auteurism, the personal generosity of a late Australian actor and an iconic experimental US theatre director who expanded his mind. Turning 33 this year, a younger Berlage might well have taken his cue from the charming American diplomat Lord Illingworth in Wilde's 1893 play A Woman of No Importance, who proclaimed, “Moderation is a fatal thing, Lady Hunstanton. Nothing succeeds like excess.” Consider, for instance, the in-your-face campness of the musical Cry-Baby, Berlage's early directorial effort for…

Our June Recording of the Month is Midsummer Dreams, a sparkling disc of Mendelssohn and Beethoven by the Australian Romantic & Classical Orchestra under conductor Rachael Beesley (ARCO ARCOCD004). “This recording is a masterclass in historically informed performance (HIP), offering listeners an electrifying, visceral experience that transports them back to a richly imagined 19th-century sound world,” writes Will Yeoman in a glowing review. “These thrilling performances, captured live, of Mendelssohn's A Midsummer Night's Dream Overture, Beethoven's Symphony No. 8 and Mendelssohn's Symphony No. 3, the Scottish, are among the finest and most exciting I've heard.” Beesley pays attention throughout to expressive techniques such as rubato, portamento and rhetorical phrasing, sculpting performances that are both stylistically rigorous and emotionally engaging while the orchestra responds with palpable enthusiasm. “The Overture shimmers with…

In 2001, arts writer and balletomane Jill Rivers was introduced by a ballet friend to filmmaker Paul Cox, who was making a film based on the extraordinary diary written in 1919 by legendary dancer Vaslav Nijinsky, when he was entering psychosis. The idea of Rivers writing a book about Nijinsky's life came up and Cox loved the idea. He was in touch with Nijinsky's second daughter, Tamara Nijinsky, as she was a consultant on the film, and he arranged for Rivers to stay with her as part of her research. The film company, MusicArtsDance Films, offered to pay for her airfare. Rivers was not one to pass up such a marvellous opportunity. Before she knew it, she was on a plane to Phoenix, Arizona to meet Tamara and her daughter,…

RADIO *All times local Bizet's 150th Anniversary More Bizet birthday celebrations, with this program including his Suite No. 2 from Carmen, Glenn Gould playing his Variations chromatiques de concert and bass Joseph Rouleau singing Quand la flamme de l'amour from The Fair Maid of Perth, among others. 1 June, 8pm, 2MBS Fine Music Sydney, 2mbsfinemusicsydney.com Festa della Repubblica Celebrate Italy's National Day with music by a selection of Italian composers, from Monteverdi's L'Orfeo to Puccini's Tosca, all performed by Italian musicians. Viva Italia! 2 June, 9am, 4MBS, 4mbs.com.au Russian Cello The Adelaide-based cellist Arjun Singh is spotlit in this program, playing Myaskovsky's First Cello Sonata, Lera Auerbach's Preludes for Cello and Piano, and Prokofiev's Cello Sonata. Pianist Simón Pazos Quintana accompanies. 2 June, 6pm, 5MBS, 5mbs.com Points North This survey of…

When I was in primary school, we were given a demonstration of all the different instruments. I wasn't that interested until the trombone came out and they did a big gliss [glissando], showcasing the slide, and I thought that was the coolest thing ever. So, I thought, “Yes, that!” However, there was something that I wasn't quite enjoying and I wanted to quit, but my parents said, “Give it a red hot go for one full year and if you really don't like it, you don't have to do it after that.” At the end of my first year, I thought, “I guess I'll do it for one more year.” I was really good at low notes. They call them ‘pedals’ on brass instruments. That usually means that you are…

What are your recollections of performing in Mahler's Resurrection at the reopening of the Sydney Opera House Concert Hall? I'll never forget being offered the mezzo-soprano solo by Melissa King, Director of Artistic Planning for the Sydney Symphony Orchestra. When she said, “What about tonight?” I laughed and told her I'd never sung it before. She replied, “It's you or nothing.” Thank goodness I'm a good musician and sight-reader. It was a very stressful situation made possible by the incredible team at the SSO, and I couldn't have done it without the support and incredible guidance under pressure of conductor Simone Young, who quietly and confidently assisted me through the first of those performances. After the final bars of music had died away, there was a spontaneous standing ovation. Streamers…

When I paint, I listen to music all the time. Right now, I have Classic Hits 2UE playing in the background. It helps block everything out, and you forget it's there after a while. My musical tastes are somewhat stunted, and I invariably listen to Linda Ronstadt, Warren Zevon, Creedence Clearwater Revival, The Rolling Stones, The Beatles, The Allman Brothers, David Bowie, Hothouse Flowers, Dire Straits, Glen Campbell, Jimmy Webb … pretty much anything prior to 2000, or probably even 1990. I don't listen to Kanye, and I wouldn't know a Taylor Swift song if I fell over it. I honestly don't know if I'm letting myself down by not tuning into the best of rap. My first album, I think, was Scorcher 76. It was one of those compilation…