Reviews

Of Jules Massenet’s some 25 operas, Don Quichotte is one of his few to be still produced – and yet until now never in Australia.  

With the name role of Cervantes’ legendary old knight, tilting at windmills, the opera is a star vehicle, so it was a shock on opening night when Italian bass Ferruccio Furlanetto was announced as ill, and replaced by the young Australian understudy Shane Lowrencev.

Carrie, the central figure of the musical, is growing up unaware of the development of her body nor the school and world in which she lives. This is mainly due to the rigid control by her mother who is a religious fanatic, in the worse sense possible. Unfortunately, the school class members are intolerant and abusive to her. Sound familiar to the present day, with bullying so prevalent across much of our society? In one fight with her mother she learns she has telekenesis power and we learn later what that means.

It’s a rare thing for a dancer to have a career that spans 50 years. It’s still more rare that said dancer would change the face of the art.  Baryshnikov, Nureyev, Nijinsky, Pavlova, Fonteyn. They all changed the face of narrative ballet through their technique and presence. Murphy himself was a formidable onstage presence. It is, however, his off stage work which has made him one of the most influential dancers of our time.

Xenos is a Greek word meaning "stranger" or "alien". Just as Prometheus, a Titan who is credited with the creation of man from clay defies the gods by stealing fire and giving it to humanity, an act that enabled progress and civilization, the Adelaide Festival production, Xenos, is precisely the opposite, showing us mankind’s ‘gift’ to humanity, namely war, that makes us strangers on Mother Earth.