Table of contents for March 2026 in Limelight

Jansson J. Antmann DAMU-trained scenographer Jansson J. Antmann designed the Czech premiere of Andrew Lloyd Webber's Tell Me on a Sunday. A presenter on 2MBS Fine Music Sydney and Editor of LaVie in Europe, he was Darlinghurst Theatre Company's publicist, a regular on ABC Overnights and acting Deputy Editor at Limelight, where he is an ongoing contributor. Steve Moffatt Steve Moffatt's earliest musical memories are of his father's dubious tenor accompanying 78s of Gigli and Björling. As a local newspaper reporter in London, he covered Jimi Hendrix's inquest. Now retired, he reviews concerts for Limelight and NewsLocal newspapers, where he worked as production editor. Shamistha de Soysa Shamistha de Soysa is a Sydney-based arts writer, reviewer, pianist and choral singer whose work appears regularly in Limelight and The Saturday Paper…

“Australia has long been a special touring location for us. Our first-ever intercontinental tour was to you in 1985, singing on jet lag being just one of the skills we had to acquire overnight. How green we were, and how green we still are, really – although the tour just concluded was our 11th. But the experience gets more and more intense. Packed, cheering audiences, and now, to cap it all, this wonderful vote. When we started in 1973, it wasn't at all clear that the general public would be interested either in us or the music we were promoting. This award has helped make the journey seem all the more worthwhile.” —Peter Phillips, founding Director, The Tallis Scholars The Tallis Scholars’ double win as People's Choice in Limelight's 2025 Artist…

In Shakespeare's day, audiences came and went during plays, cheered and booed enthusiastically, and even threw food at the actors. Behaviour was somewhat more seemly in Mozart's time, though patrons chatted, played cards and popped between private boxes if the music didn't enthral them. When it did, they applauded and stamped their feet not only between movements but during them too. Nowadays, at what has come to be considered ‘high’ cultural performances, we look daggers at anyone with a crinkly lozenge wrapper. While the etiquette that's developed means audiences can enjoy the show without distraction, it also influences who is in the audience. It's rare to see those long pushed to society's margins, including people with disabilities who struggle to sit still and quiet for long periods. Performing arts experiences…

For the past six years, Lyndon Terracini and his wife, opera singer Noëmi Nadelmann, have lived in the Orange wine region in Central West NSW, just outside the charming historic town of Millthorpe. Terracini hadn't planned to stage an opera festival there, but as he and Nadelmann settled in, memories came flooding back of European festivals, at which he performed early in his career, and a new passion project was born. While working as the Artistic Director of Opera Australia from 2009 to 2022, Terracini was keen to introduce an annual outdoor opera on Sydney Harbour. Securing the support of Japanese businessman and philanthropist Dr Haruhisa Handa, OA launched the splashy event in 2014. As Handa Opera on Sydney Harbour established itself, a firm friendship blossomed between the two men.…

Forest Song Ukraine's signature ballet is a testament to a culture that continues to endure. Nearly a decade after its launch, OperaVision remains a vital cultural platform, opening a window onto companies no less accomplished but lacking the cinema relays and bespoke streaming platforms of their metropolitan counterparts. Crucially, OperaVision also enables audiences around the world to appreciate not only artistic virtuosity but resilience. Nowhere is this more evident than in Ukraine, where performers pursue their calling under the constant threat of bombardment. A stark example is Tiger Hunters, the electrifying 2023 rock opera from Kyiv National Academic Operetta Theatre currently streaming on the platform. Based on novels by Ivan Bahrianyi, it stars Oleksii Kyryllov as an aviator engineer fleeing transport to the Gulag. Filmed last April, the recording captures…

I was walking my dog down the street the other day when I came upon an inscription chalked on the path. It was a big series of circles with the words “Always smile even when the sun dosen't (sic) shine.” This irked me no end. I was in a perfectly serviceable, neutral mood and was now being told by some chalky child with bad spelling that I had to put on a fake smile on a cloudy day. Why would I do such a thing? For whose benefit? It was meant to be a positive affirmation but sent me into a teacup-sized storm of indignation. I don't like anonymous messages telling me to smile. My 92-year-old mother refuses to smile in photos. I think she gave it up somewhere in…

CLASSICAL MUSIC Melbourne Symphony Orchestra & Sydney Symphony Orchestra: María Dueñas Celebrated young Spanish violinist María Dueñas makes her Australian debut in two major orchestral appearances with the Melbourne and Sydney Symphony Orchestras. She first joins the MSO under Chief Conductor Jaime Martín in Beethoven's Violin Concerto, paired with the Australian premiere of Melody Eötvös's The Deciding Machine and Strauss's Also sprach Zarathustra. Dueñas then joins the SSO and conductor Alexander Soddy for Bruch's First Violin Concerto in a program that also features UK organist Anna Lapwood in her Australian debut playing Saint-Saëns’ Organ Symphony (see below). Jansson J. Antmann 12 & 14 March, Hamer Hall, Arts Centre Melbourne & 13 March, Costa Hall, Geelong, mso.com.au; 19–21 March, Concert Hall, Sydney Opera House, sydneysymphony.com Orange Chamber Music Festival This year's…

Our 2025 Giving Culture Award for favourite performance of the year, voted for by our readers, goes to the Australian Chamber Orchestra for its concert with South African cello sensation Abel Selaocoe in his Australian debut. Here is an edited version of our five-star review by Shamistha de Soysa. People are standing in their seats, swaying and clapping, singing, chanting and flicking their shoulders in time to the rhythms. All thoughts of convention and gravitas are dispelled by this visceral audience reaction to the fiery performance of charismatic South African composer, singer and cellist Abel Selaocoe with percussionist and colleague Sidiki Dembélé. Helena Rathbone leads the Australian Chamber Orchestra in this concert, which is part of its 50th-anniversary season. Selaocoe draws heavily on the musical heritage of his youth, combining…

When Stuart Maunder was seven, he was taken to see the 1964/65 Tivoli production of The Wizard of Oz and was transfixed by Reg Livermore's performance as the Wicked Witch of the West. He has been “obsessed” with Livermore ever since. So, who better to direct a revival of Ned Kelly, the long-lost 1977 musical about the Australian bushranger featuring book and lyrics by Livermore and music by Patrick Flynn. Maunder actually saw Ned Kelly during its brief Sydney season in 1978. Well, of course he did, he exclaims with a laugh. He went to see everything Livermore did following that first, unforgettable encounter. “When [Jesus Christ] Superstar happened, he gave that extraordinary performance as Herod. Then I took my girlfriend to see The Rocky Horror Show, not knowing what…

ABC listening highlight Sibelius's First Symphony – West Australian Symphony Orchestra 4 March at 8pm In any musical program, contrast and coherence are often at odds. Joined by Vancouver Symphony Orchestra's Music Director Otto Tausk and clarinet soloist Ashley Smith, the West Australian Symphony Orchestra makes a compelling argument for the classic overtureconcerto-symphony format to showcase three wildly contrasting works. Johan Wagenaar (1862–1941) was a Dutch composer and organist whose style was influenced by Richard Strauss. His Cyrano de Bergerac Overture is a multi-faceted portrait of the literate, lovelorn hero of Rostand's play. Tausk and WASO point up the romantic and parodic elements of Wagenaar's rich score with equal alacrity, creating a rousing opening to the concert. Gnarly Buttons is a three-movement work for clarinet and small orchestra, written in…

My father, Tony Gould, was appointed as the founding Director of the Queensland Performing Arts Centre (QPAC) in 1979, so our family moved to Brisbane the following year. I have vivid memories from childhood of QPAC being built. My parents took my brother and me to all kinds of performances. From a very young age, we saw classical music and opera – art forms that aren't often seen by children – so I became familiar with diverse music. I saw Elgar's Cello Concerto and was mesmerised by its desolation. Of course, it's an iconic work. I didn't know at the time that it's about the futility of war, written at the end of World War I; I felt that it was about me. I was quite a dramatic teenager. World…

Newsworthy A round-up of our recent news reports Will arts boards and politicians never learn? The cancellation of this year's Adelaide Writers’ Week, following the decision to uninvite Australian-Palestinian writer, academic and advocate Randa Abdel-Fattah, comes in the wake of a series of arts-related controversies, triggered by the events in Gaza. Dr Abdel-Fattah – who was scheduled to discuss her novel Discipline – was removed from the lineup, with the board citing concerns of “cultural sensitivity” after the Bondi terror attack on 14 December. As a result, 180 authors withdrew from the festival. Director of the event, Louise Adler, quit on 13 January, saying she could not “be party to silencing writers”. Most of the board also resigned. So how and why did this happen? Some have accused South Australian…

“In 1926, my father was born in Newcastle, NSW, so there's a special delight for me to receive this Award a hundred years later. He left that same year and never returned, but in my professional life, I have visited and played in Australia dozens of times. I recall with affection all the wonderful colleagues – conductors, orchestral musicians, managers (and piano tuners!) – with whom I have collaborated over the years. Thank you all … and thank you to Limelight for this great honour.” —Stephen Hough When Sir Stephen Hough tours to Australia, there's always a strong sense of homecoming. The British-born pianist took out dual Australian citizenship in 2005 partly to honour his father, who migrated from Newcastle in NSW to the UK as a baby. His mother led…

“Gopher tuna! Bring more tuna! Statue of big dog with fleas!” No, it isn't a piece of magnetic fridge poetry, nor the deranged AI output of Elon Musk's Grok. In fact, it's been posted on YouTube as part of a series of misheard lyrics in classical music. Its source, of course, is O Fortuna, the thunderous opening chorus of Carl Orff's Carmina Burana. As an aural misinterpretation, it's a trifle contrived (it goes on to rhyme North Korea with gonorrhoea), but it points to the enduring popularity of a work that is loved by millions while looked down on by some who ought to know better. Over the years, that epic opening chorus has been used to advertise Old Spice, Carlton draught beer and Guiness. It served as the trailer…

Lauren Fagan's debut with Opera Australia just two years ago could have been considered more than overdue for a singer with her career trajectory. However, the Australian soprano, born and bred in Sydney, isn't having any of that. “I can't deny there was always a huge urge to come back,” she says, but adds, “You just have to believe things will happen at the right time.” Her approach has borne fruit. “I'm very practical and realistic,” she told Limelight's Editor-at-Large, Clive Paget, in an interview for an American publication in 2022. That attitude has led her steadily towards the work she knows suits her best and which she loves – roles such as Tatyana in Tchaikovsky's Eugene Onegin that ask for her vocal character and dramatic gifts. It's engrossing territory…

“We all felt the thud. It shuddered right through the West.” At the age of 12, Dennis McIntosh watched the West Gate Bridge collapse. It was lunchtime on a Thursday, and he was standing on the netball courts on the roof of his school in Newport in Melbourne's western suburbs. “We saw the smoke, we heard the sirens and then a few days later, there were a few funerals at our school,” he recalls. It was 15 October, 1970, and the West Gate Bridge was halfway through construction. On the day McIntosh heard the terrible thud, 35 men were killed and 18 injured. Some men were working high in the air, others were having lunch in the workers’ huts underneath, when 2,000 tonnes of steel came crashing down. Many of…

In the eschatology of Islam, the Sirāt is the bridge that every human must cross on the Day of Judgement to reach Paradise. According to tradition, it is narrower than a human hair and sharper than a sword, and it is a wholly fitting title for this hypnotic, fatalistic adventure from the French-Spanish director Óliver Laxe. The film opens with images of a crew of technicians building a PA system. On completion, Laxe pulls away to admire what they have made: a huge altar to music and hedonism erected in the middle of a desert. A raw, hard beat kicks in and we are immersed in a Burning Man-style techno rave. From among the crowd of mostly European ravers kicking up the desert dust, Laxe picks out people who will…

My earliest memory of the violin is when I was five years old and I found one at our Paris home. My parents weren't musicians, but they liked classical music. I had no idea what it was. I just found it beautiful, aesthetically speaking, and wanted to try it. I turned out to be quite good at it, and from the age of eight or nine, I practised every day, including on weekends and holidays. I finished school at 3:30pm and did an hour and a half of violin, then my homework, then another hour and a half before sleep. In those three hours I spent at least one hour doing scales to build a strong foundation. In those early days, the work was mainly technique. I did all my…