EUGENE ONEGIN - Opera Australia - Sydney Opera House.

 

Brayden Harry (Young Onegin) - Keeley Tennyson (Young Tatyana) - Lauren Fagan (Tatyana)
 in Opera Australia's production of "Eugene Onegin)

Composed by Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky

Librettists: Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky, Konstantin Shilovsky

Directed by Kasper Holten – Revival Director: Heather Fairbairn

Conducted by Anna Skryleva - Set Designer: Mia Stensgaard

Costumes designed by Katrina Lindsay – Lighting designed by Wolfgang Gobell

Choreographed by Signe Fabricius – Revival Choreographer: Chloe Dallimore

Joan Sutherland Theatre – Sydney Opera House until 28^th March 2026.

Opening night performance on March 17^th reviewed by BILL STEPHENS

Lauren Fagan (Tatyana) - Opera Australia Chorus in "Eugene Onegin")

To complete its 2026 summer season, Opera Australia’s is offering a gloriously sung and lavishly staged production of Tchaikovsky’s “Eugene Onegin”. It is a production that lingers in the mind long after the final curtain, although not necessarily because of the way it embraces the emotional heart of Tchaikovsky’s masterpiece.

This production was first premiered by Opera Australia in the Sydney Opera House in 2014. Even then, interpolations introduced by the original director, Kasper Holten, created controversy. Rightfully, these interpolations are retained by the revival director, Heather Fairbairn, and not unexpectedly, have been met with similar audience responses as previously.

Some question Holten’s decision to introduce two young dancers to interpret Tatyana and Onegin’s memories of their youthful responses to each other. As prettily as Keely Tennyson and Brayden Harry dance these moments, many found their presence intrusive, confusing, even distracting.

Andrei Bondarenko (Onegin) - Lauren Fagan (Tatyana) in "Eugene Onegin"

As Onegin, Andrei Bondarenko’s burnished baritone is perfectly suited to the character’s aloof elegance. However, the cool detachment exhibited by his Onegin towards Tatyana in the early scenes, raises questions as to what it was about Onegin that aroused such passionate feelings in the youthful Tatyana.

Holten’s positioning of Tatyana directly facing Onegin and Olga during the ballroom scene, making it impossible for her to avoid watching their obvious flirting, made their actions appear particularly malicious and hurtful.

Andrei Bondarenko (Onegin) - Nicholas Jones (Lensky) in "Eugene Onegin"

His staging of the duel scene makes it difficult to escape the impression that Onegin is more interested in the young poet, Lensky, than in Tatyana. Despite his declarations, it is only after Lensky’s death that Onegin exhibits any feelings for Tatyana.

As Tatyana, Lauren Fagan is a revelation. Her vocal tone is warm and luminous and carries the ache of youthful longing without tipping into sentimentality. In Fagan’s hands the famous “letter scene” becomes not only a masterclass in vocal control and emotional vulnerability, but also the evening’s emotional fulcrum as she charts her character’s journey from youthful infatuation to dignified resolve.

Lauren Fagan (Tatyana) - Angela Hogan (Filipyevna) - Keeley Tennyson (Young Tatyana)
in "Eugene Onegin"

It is Nicholas Jones as Lensky, in a passionate and brilliantly sung portrayal, who raises the temperature with his unrestrained jealousy. Enraged at the sight of Onegin’s wilful flirtation with Olga, he flings a ballroom chair across the room smashing it to pieces, tears a bookcase door from its hinges, before challenging Onegin to the duel that results in his death.

Prior to the duel, Lensky’s second-act aria, was delivered with such unguarded sincerity by Jones that the audience was compelled to hold its collective breath at his remarkable ability to marry vocal beauty with dramatic truth.

Brayden Harry (Young Onegin) - Clifford Plumpton (Zaretsky) - Andrei Bondarenko (Onegin) - Nicholas Jones (Lensky) in "Eugene Onegin"

His extraordinary self-control, required to lie motionless as Lensky’s corpse throughout most of the second act also attracted admirable comment.

surrounding the three protagonists, Sian Sharp delighted as Tatyana’s vivacious younger sister, Olga, the unwitting catalyst for the feud between Onegin and Lensky.  David Parkin impressed as Tatyana’s dignified husband Gremin, even though Holten’s decision to have Gremin overhear Tatyana’s declaration of love for Onegin, provided Tatyana with an additional problem not envisaged by Tchaikovsky.

Lauren Fagan (Tatyana) - David Parkin (Gremin) - Andrei Bondarenko (Onegin)
in "Eugene Onegin".

Helen Sherman as Tatyana’s mother, Larina, Angela Hogan as the sister’s nurse, Filipyevna, and Elias Wilson as Monsieur Triquet, who sings the song composed by Lensky for Tatyana name day, all complimented fine singing with well-rounded characterisations.

Conducting her first opera for Opera Australia, Anna Skryleva marshalled her resources to telling effect, allowing Tchaikovsky’s magnificent score to breathe, while still maintaining dramatic momentum. The Opera Australia Orchestra responded with playing of shimmering colour and emotional depth, as did the Opera Australia chorus which thrilled with its usual rich, full-bodied singing.  

Regardless of your response to aspects of Holten’s vision for this opera, there can be little argument that Opera Australia has done the composer proud with this gloriously sung and lavishly mounted  production, which is not only visually and aurally satisfying, but which also challenges the viewer to reflect deeply on the nature of love, passion and the responsibility of opera directors to regard the composer’s intentions.

                                                            Images by Keith Saunders

   This review also published in AUSTRALIAN ARTS REVIEW. www.arts review.com.au

  

Theatre of Dreams

Adelaide Festival

Hofesh Shechter

Festival Theatre

Season Closed

Reviewed by Samara Purnell 

As the start time of 2pm came and went, distant drumming could be heard. About ten minutes later the lights dimmed and the drumming grew louder. 

A dancer mounted the stage from the front row and Hofesh Shechter’s Theatre of Dreams began.

Our dreamer attempts to get his bearings in the muted lighting, accompanied by a muffled, pulsing drum beat.

The curtains get an epic work out, as they are half opened, closed, pulled across the stage, momentarily open, quickly shut, revealing and removing glimpses and vignettes of the dancers in various states -  individuals and groups flawlessly appearing and disappearing in the most remarkably perfect transitions.

Photo by Andrew Beveridge

The drums are thumping loudly now and, windswept, the solo dancer from the audience vanishes into the curtains, beginning his descent down the rabbit hole. Into the subconscious, dream-state, a timeless, placeless landscape of music and energy. 

As dancers posed, writhed and pulsed in split seconds as the curtains swept them away, exposed them or hid them it called to mind the movie trope of looking into windows in a highrise apartment block, noticing the activities and possible narratives behind each one. 

Photo by Andrew Beveridge

In a sequence that conjured up smokey whiskey bar-cum-Baz Luhrmann movie, one of the dancers takes to a microphone stand to theatrically welcome the audience to the Theatre of Dreams. 

The soundscape of Shechter’s own creation comprised the drums and beats to begin with and three on-stage musicians who appeared throughout, introducing genres with energy and gusto, from piano, blues and jazz, Cuban, African, Latin American, tango and gospel. Middle Eastern and European musical influences swelled to a cacophony of sound and created the feeling of a global consciousness. 

Primitive, tribal, ape-like, the dancers strutted across stage to the beat of drums. Vignettes of sacrificial rituals, raves, folk dances and mime flashed past. French show girls, school classes, first dance classes, celebrations, orgies, funerals all seem to come up. Momentary singing when the dancers joined the musicians was particularly poignant.  

Surprisingly, most of the depictions and moods created weren’t terrifying or nightmarish, with the exception of perhaps the flat-out sprinting and the “being naked in front of everyone” one, but even then, the nude male dancer acknowledged the audience, seemingly devoid of much embarrassment. Fleeting moments of tenderness, intimacy, passion were interrupted by the group as everyone was continually swept back into the masses. An attempt to “escape”, even if spat back through the curtains, was quickly rectified by being pulled back into the action.

This included the audience, from the emergence of the dancer from it at the start, to a dance break where the house lights came up, the performers left the stage and joined the audience, encouraging a dance-along. This will always be a high risk choice - from breaking the mood or in this case the overwhelming musical and movement tension, to unsuccessful attempts to make the audience do something. Luckily, this show was performed to a group filled with other dancers and dance lovers who were more than happy to jump up and oblige.

Shechter’s choreographic vocabulary included influences from across the globe, but primarily was jerking arms, hands, feet, a mass of limbs thrown about and surely some of the biggest body rolls and hip circles humanly possible. Despite the apparent freedom and abandon in the mood and movement, every single move was precise, executed by the ensemble to perfection. 

The ensemble, costumed in everything from disco dresses, to long satin slips, loose pants and crew necks to patterned suits, had a maturity, a confidence about it. Each dancer moved like a weightless puppet - the ease and skill on display was really something to behold. 

Photo by Andrew Beveridge

Thematically and choreographically, there were striking similarities to the Stephanie Lake production “The Chronicles”, also showing at the Adelaide Festival and it was wonderful to see these shows in tandem. 

Both create a sense of a driving force possessing the dancers, needing to find a breaking point, an exhaustion. To witness this process as the breath is heard and the sweat is glistening on bodies, is to marvel at the fitness, endurance, talent and training that these dancers undertake. 

Theatre of Dreams builds tension through relentless movement. It is a feast of overwhelming sound and energy, music and moody red lighting, joyful and frenetic movement with a fascination for the miniscule details. It is hypnotizing and at the same time the most energetic dreams one could imagine. 

The staging and even the curtains alone is an impressive effort from the backstage and fly crew. 

Several times it seemed the performance was reaching a conclusion, only to give way to another sequence, longer ones than at the beginning. 

It felt like being in the movie “Inception” descending through layers and dreams, making you wonder which “reality” is real. They are us and we are them. 

The eventual end was unexpected. Another layer, another possibility, a sehnsucht for feeling, for joy, for what dreams may come, as the dancers themselves became silhouettes frozen in subconscious, in front of old-fashioned theatre curtains - perhaps waiting in time, for their theatre of dreams. 

THE 25TH ANNUAL PUTNAM COUNTY SPELLING BEE

 

The 25^th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee. Based upon Crepuscule, an original play by The Farm

Music and Lyrics by William Finn. Book by Rachel Sheinkin. Conceived by Rebecca Feldman. Additional Material by Jay Reiss. Director Nathan Patrech. Choreographer. Lachlan Ruffy. Musical director Samara Marinelli. Stage Manager Nikki Fitzgerald. Assistant Stage Manager Lucy van Dooren. Costume Designer Jennie Norberry. Lighting Designer Nikki Fitzgerald. Sound Designer James McPherson. Sound Operator Adrian Bury. Set Design Nathan Patrech and Ian Croker. Photography Ben Appleton-Photox. Program and Poster Design Lara Niven. Set construction Ian Croker. Canberra Philharmonic Society. ACT HUB. March 12-28 Bookings ACTHUB.COM.AU.

Reviewed by Peter Wilkins

 Michael Cooper as Douglas Panch and Amy Kowalczuk as Rona Peretti

and the Kidsin The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee 

 After enjoying an evening of silliness, loudness and competitive mayhem at Philo’s production of The 25^th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee, I decided to find out the origins of the spelling bee. The first modern kids’ spelling bee was begun in Washington DC in 1925 when nine newspapers organized a spelling competition for children. The first winner was 11-year-old Frank Neuhauser from Louisville Kentucky who took home a massive $500 in gold pieces. Since then spelling bees have been held all over the world. Recently in Australia the competition was made popular by Guy Montgomery’s Guy Mont Spelling Bee in which adult celebrities and selected audience members face the challenge.

Dave Collins as William Barfee

 My first impression at the eponymous opening company number was of a silly rumbustuously lively and incredibly loud romp by an enormously talented cast who threw themselves into the story of the 25^th Annual County Putnam Spelling Bee with a barrel load of gusto. The energy was contagious. The characters appeared to have leapt out of Sesame Street and onto the intimate ACT HUB stage. The adults run the show while the kids compete to win the trophy. Host and former winner Rona Peretti (Amy Kowalczuk) is your typical small town socialite. Reformed gambling addict and High School vice principal Douglas Panch (Michael Cooper) reads out the words while parolee Mitch Mahoney (Tim Stiles) ushers out the losers with a Fruit Box for their efforts. All three are perfectly cast.

  Swing (Lachlan Nicholls) Rona (Amy Kowalczuk)

Olive Ostrovsky (Amelia Andersson-Nickson

In recent years I have remarked time and again on the excellent quality of musical theatre in Canberra and Queanbeyan. With The 25^th Annual County Putnam Spelling Bee full credit must go to director Nathan Patrech, musical director Samara Marinelli and choreographer Lachlan Ruffy for keeping the show moving along, the stage business active and interesting, the singing excellent and the choreography simple and appropriate for an adult cast, playing young children. The added effect of including a few members of the audience to take part at the start of the spelling bee also heightens the humour. It’s all done in good fun and the volunteers are soon despatched with a fruit box for their troubles by Mahoney.

  

The Kids in The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee

 

As the stakes get higher and the winner’s trophy becomes the holy grail the need becomes more earnest, and the spelling bee descends into frentic urgency as the company sings Pandemonium. We are witness to the underlying tensions and fears of the individual characters as one by one they receive their fruit box. What makes Philo’s production so commendable is the ability of the company to engage the audience fully in each character, much to the credit of every actor’s performance. Director Patrech has done what he says in the programme, “surround yourself with people more talented than yourself and get out of the way” That is the true talent of a great director. There is so much talent in this show that you could well believe that you have paid a bargain price for a top-notch professional show. Moving to the intimacy of the ACT HUB theatre helps, but it is the company’s command of acting and singing that really makes The 25^th Annual County Putnam Spelling Bee a resounding success.

Tim Stiles as Mitch Mahoney. Amelie Andersson-Nickson as Olive Ostrovsky

Amy Kowalczuk as Rona Peretti 

 

Every single performance is idiosyncratic, some hugely comical like Joe Mansell’s Leaf Coneybear. Some burst with manic energy, such as Meaghan Stewart’s Logainne Schwarzandgrubinnaire. There is a touch of the autistic to Ella Colquhoun’s  punctilious Marcy Park. Stirling Notley’s Chip Tolentino hits the highlight of embarrassment with Erection, the cause of his sorry rejection. Our hearts go out to the fragile plight of Amelia Andersson-Nickson’s insecure Olive Ostrovsky as she longs for her father to arrive at the contest. There is a certain pathos in Dave Collins’ performance of the misfit with the Magic Foot, William Barfee.

And there is deep tenderness in Kowalczuk’s rendition of Then I Love You Song directed with such tear- welling impact towards her young daughter, sitting in the front row on the night I went. She is joined by Andersson-Nickson and Stiles in a number that instantly dismisses any reservations I may have had at the start of the show that The 25^th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee is nothing more than a piece of fun. William Finn’s range of styles and melodies to suit each character’s feelings takes us on an emotional journey that leaves us with a gentle glow in the heart. Rachel Sheinkin’s book remains true to Rebecca Feldman’s original conception. It may be peculiarly American in its style and humour, but Philo’s company of artists ensures that we perceive the universal humanity that lies at the heart of any competition, leaving us to judge the effect on young minds.

Canberra Philharmonic’s decision to move from its usual home at the Erindale Theatre to the more intimate and central venue of ACT HUB is the ideal decision for this show that is more Off Broadway than the more extravagant musicals. I would have preferred the show not to be miked, but that is my preference and miking is now the accepted technique. That aside, Canberra Philharmonic’s production of is another jewel in the crown of the company’s musical productions. 

Photos by Nathan Patrech