Limelight 2019 - Volume 08: September: Australia's Classical Music and Arts Magazine

- Blurb -

Cover story- Tom Stoppard- The Real Thing. We examine the 50-year career of the mercurial playwright, whose dazzling wordplay gave rise to the term 'Stoppardian'. Sydney Theatre Company performs his play The Real Thing this month, featuring a playwright not unlike Stoppard himself, while in November, Sydney Symphony Orchestra performs Every Good Boy Deserves Favour, his ingenious play for actors and orchestra, written with Andre Previn. Feature- An exploration of Elgar's Enigma Variations, which the composer dedicated "to my friends pictured within". Each initialised variation is a musical sketch of a close friend. But what about the rumoured hidden melody? Ryan Wigglesworth conducts the piece for Melbourne Symphony Orchestra. Article- Join us as we enter the unsettling world of Aribert Reimann's 1984 opera, Ghost Sonata, based on Strindberg's evocative, moody play, which Opera Australia presents in Sydney and Melbourne. Interviews- Rising star, 11-year old Melbourne violinist Christian Li, as he prepares to play with the Australian Brandenburg Orchestra and the Sydney Symphony Orchestra; and Australian composer Gordon Kerry on his new Clarinet Quintet for Omega Ensemble. Reviews- The Australian World Orchestra plays Janacek's Taras Bulba; Opera Australia's world premiere of Whiteley, about the artist Brett Whiteley, with music by Elena Kats-Chernin; Belvoir's new adaptation of Brecht's Life of Galileo starring Colin Friels; and Melbourne Theatre Company's Shakespeare in Love directed by Simon Phillips. What's on- live performance and radio highlights for September 2019.