Category Archive: Classical Music
Wagner at the Movies
[Richard Wagner Society of SA, Adelaide University, 17 August 2025] Although Wagner, in his essay, foresaw “The Artwork of the Future,” as a communal matter, a ‘fellowship of all artists,’ it is hard to contest Stephen Whittington’s surmise that had Wagner lived in the time of film, he would have been something of an intractable auteur. What one would give to see a discussion between Wagner and Jack Warner, or for that matter, with Errol Flynn. Yet as Stephen pointed out in his entertaining and informative Brian Coghlan Memorial Lecture, the Maestro looms large in the Hollywood firmament (to borrow…
Continue Reading →Songs of Richard
(North Adelaide, 13 July 2025) This was a very pleasant presentation organised by the Richard Wagner Society SA, wherein South Australian mezzo soprano Fiona McArdle, with Josh van Konkelenberg on grand piano, presented a selection of the non-operatic songs of Richard Wagner. Fiona made her professional debut in 2017 as La Ciesca in Puccini’s Gianni Schicchi with the State Opera of South Australia. With the company she also played Magdalene (Der Meistersinger von Nürnberg) and second saleswoman (La Vida Breve). Fiona completed her Master of Music at the New England Conservatory, Boston, USA, 2018. Role highlights within her studies include…
Continue Reading →The Bad and the Beautiful
ASO at Adelaide Town Hall, 4 July 2025 A mixed night at the Adelaide Symphony Orchestra’s programme entitled “Mythic”, featuring a piece of that name by someone from Tashkent named Elena Kats-Chernin. Described as conjuring “the atmosphere of a mystical cave…where shadowy strings and twinkling winds reflect the faint glimmer of light in a cavernous realm“, it is a mess, frankly, like some cacophonous tune from a Hanna-Barbera cartoon meeting the score from “Out of Africa.” But it had pleasant things within what we might loosely call its structure, which is more than we can say for the drivel that…
Continue Reading →Bel Canto, davvero!
Alberich monsters Mime (by Arthur Rackham)
Richard Wagner Society of South Australia – Wake for Wagner (18 for 13) February 2024 President Geoffrey Seidel welcomed, and Barbara Fergusson interviewed, tenor Andrew Goodwin. Andrew grew up in the inner west Sydney suburb of Summer Hill and after certain vicissitudes, got the opportunity, arranged by Mira Yevtich, to study at the St Petersburg State Conservatory. Since then, he has appeared in numerous roles* and performed with all the major Australian symphony orchestras, but thus far at least, in few Wagner operas (when this was pointed out, he hilariously channeled “The Fast Show” and said: “I’ll get my coat.”)…
Continue Reading →Maestro
(Directed by Bradley Cooper – Netflix, 2023) Maestro is not a biopic of Leonard Bernstein, a popular and influential conductor, composer and musicologist. We do follow his career, but high and low points are marked by whirls of scenic grabs and musical snatches. The film’s focus is on Bernstein’s long and bumpy marriage to Felicia Montealegre, going from breathless first-flush intimacy, to star couple, to cold understanding, to a final tenderness. Whilst this renders the film a little thin, putting it mildly, it succeeds upon its chosen horizon. This is due to great turns by Bradley Cooper and, in particular,…
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