Reviews

The first of Ensemble Q’s Sundays by the Lake performances was well worth the trip out to the University of Queensland. The concert took place in the stunning building no. 49 which has a glass wall so you can look out across the stage to the lake, trees and wildlife beyond. It was the perfect setting for the melancholic themed program, featuring works by two composers who tragically died young, but who continued to compose even in the face of cruel and final illness.

How to describe St Kilda Tales without defining it, assigning a genre, or putting it in a box?  Musical Director and musician Alex Raineri, the Brisbane Music Festival Artistic Director, seems to call it a rave – and he asks how we can push the boundaries of rave.  Here, rave music runs end to end of this nearly two-hour production, across and over the drama on stage.  And how to describe that?  It’s a montage, or a series of snapshots, or a series of tableaux of St Kilda people, street scenes, chance and not so chance encounters.  As a

What began in 2019 as a ten-minute musical sketch has evolved and developed into fifty-five minutes of great, sustained music theatre entertainment.  Clever, witty songs – that advance the story.  Intricate, inventive and energetic choreography.  Sharp and economic character development.  Touching reveals.  And great performances.

Manon is a fascinating anti-heroine, an alluring schemer with an eye for diamonds, desperate to escape poverty in eighteenth century France, and fickle to her great love as she’s pimped by her brother to arrogant aristocrats.  Not your usual heroine of classical ballet!  She ends up back in rags in a Louisiana swamp.