Limelight

Limelight is the first source for arts and entertainment information. Independent, groundbreaking and always engaging, Limelight delivers in-depth insight into the arts scene, both locally and overseas. For interviews, features, previews, latest news and reviews as well as state by state events listings, limelight is your one-stop cultural guide.

SAILS NOT FOR SALE....

Contributors

WHAT’S HAPPENING ON OUR WEBSITE?

Letters

A LITTLE MORE SPARTACUS MUSCLE

Sam Allchurch nabs three new roles • LIFE LOOKS BUSY FOR THE YOUNG CONDUCTOR, APPOINTED TO THREE NEW MUSIC DIRECTOR POSITIONS

ELENA SCHWARZ’S NEW TSO GIG

Dean’s Hamlet heads to NY

IN BRIEF

MUSICAL JOKE

Ivan Ilic • The American pianist is delving deep into the music of Antoine Reicha (a student of Beethoven and Haydn) in his recording series for Chandos, but when he’s not at the piano, his listening tastes range widely from early music to the work of Hans Otte and Keeril Makan.

The legendary Montserrat Caballé has died • BELOVED FOR HER INTERPRETATIONS OF THE BEL CANTO, THE SPANISH SOPRANO HAS DIED AT 85

WRONG NOTE

AURA GO PIANIST

TOP OF THE LIMELIGHT CHART

Requiem

All around the world • THE MOST IMPORTANT MUSICAL EVENTS OUTSIDE AUSTRALIA IN THE PAST MONTH

WHO BROUGHT THE HOUSE DOWN?

THE ART OF DOTTED NOTES • With new software Ria Andriani transcribes musical scores to braille. As the community becomes more aware, she hopes vision-impaired people will find it easier to participate in ensembles and choirs

WAXING LYRICAL • From leaf-blowers to Katy Perry, city living is fraught with danger for the conductor’s most important asset: ears

HAILING HASSE • Long a champion of Johann Adolph Hasse, American mezzo-soprano Vivica Genaux waxes lyrical about a composer whose vocal writing she compares to the act of spreading peanut butter

M. HALÉVY’S PROUSTIAN CONNECTIONS • Do a widow, an aria and a prostitute link the composer of La Juive with Marcel Proust?

DAVID IRVING • The baroque violinist and musicologist gives us a behind-the-scenes look at his recording of the largely forgotten, quirky Viennese composer and Imperial Kapellmeister, Johann Heinrich Schmelzer

EXPLORING THE HINTERLAND • Lachlan Skipworth evokes the unique rock formations of WA

A SCHOOL IS BORN: THE BUILDING • The Age of Enlightenment is not over... we have just had a long intermission. Muswellbrook is leading a renaissance with a remarkable, educational gift for children

ANTOINETTE HALLORAN • The soprano, who dropped the double bass for singing lessons as a teenager, tells Justine Nguyen about Puccini’s heroines, her multifaceted career, and her upcoming star turn as a mermaid

A SHOW OF HANS • Richard Wagner’s comic masterpiece, Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg, explores the nature of art. As Kasper Holten’s production for Opera Australia opens in Melbourne, Peter Bassett examines why it has become a controversial target of revisionism in recent decades.

KASPER HOLTEN ON MEISTERSINGER IN A GENTLEMAN’S CLUB

BILL & JAN’S EXCELLENT ADVENTURE • German-born cellist Jan Vogler tells Angus McPherson how a chance meeting with movie star Bill Murray on a flight from Berlin became the start of a beautiful – and productive – friendship.

RING MASTERS • When the Hong Kong Philharmonic asked Klaus Heymann if Naxos would record its Ring cycle he thought it was “a crazed idea” but agreed anyway. Jo Litson discovers how the orchestra, under Jaap van Zweden, struck (Rhine)gold with the ambitious project.

THE HONG KONG COLLECTION

HOLLYWOOD ENDING • Erich Wolfgang Korngold may have been the greatest prodigy that ever lived, but people could be sniffy. Renaud...