‘The Magic Flute’: Picture Gallery

Australian theatre director Benedict Andrews’ vision of Puccini’s opera La bohème opened at the English National Opera this week. The director has raised controversy again (remember his 2012 imagining of The Marriage of Figaro for Opera Australia?) with his portrayal of Mimi and Rodolfo as heroin addicts. Read the review in The Guardian, in The Telegraph and The…

The geographic and ethnic boundaries of Western classical music are being extended. Extended with a purpose. Recently, the Australian Chamber Orchestra featured Palestinian-Israeli pianist Saleem Abboud Ashkar. They played the music of Schubert and Messiaen. Daniel Barenboim and his West-Eastern Divan Orchestra are recording the orchestral works of Beethoven. They have perhaps achieved more towards Middle Eastern reconciliation…