Adelaide set for festival feast

THE 2017 Adelaide Festival, under the helm of new co-artistic directors Rachel Healy and Neil Armfield, will feature a host of theatre, opera, dance and arts events as well as the annual Womadelaide and Writers’ Week -festivals.

Among the highlights of the 17-day festival are the Australian premieres of Barrie Kosky’s opera Saul, Berlin Schaubühne Theatre’s Richard III and Canadian musician Rufus Wainwright’s concert version of his opera, Prima Donna.

Healy says she is excited to direct her first Adelaide Festival with Armfield.

“We want our festival to be the kind of festival that provides unique experiences,” she says.

“While most festivals around the world have moved away from epic opera, we will be staging Saul, which will be directed by Barrie Kosky, one of the great opera directors.”

Kosky, who was born in Melbourne and shot to fame with his -avant-garde Gilgull Theatre productions in the 1990s, moved to Europe in 2001 to become head of the Schauspielhaus Vienna before taking up the role of artistic director of the Komische Oper Berlin in 2012.

In 2015 Kosky directed Handel’s Saul at England’s Glyndebourne Festival to rave reviews. This production will be staged at the Adelaide Festival with Christopher Purves reprising the title role, joined by a cast of local and international performers.

Saul marks Kosky’s return to Adelaide, where he directed a successful Adelaide Festival in 1996.

British Jewish performer Danny Braverman is bringing his solo stage show Wot? No Fish!! to the festival after performing it in Sydney and Melbourne in early 2015.

Wot? No Fish!! is set around sketches that Braverman’s great uncle Ab Solomons, a shoemaker, drew on the back of his pay packets that he handed over to his wife Celie each week from 1926 until she died in 1982.

As Braverman pulls one sketch after another out of a shoebox, he tells the poignant story behind each of them.

The Israeli dance troupe L-E-V will present the Australian premieres of two modern dance productions, Killer Pig and OCD Love.

After 23 years with Israel’s Batsheva Dance Company, principal dancer and choreographer Sharon Eyal decided to forge her own creative path. Teaming up with Tel Aviv producer Gai Behar and several Batsheva dancers, he established L-E-V.

In Killer Pig, mutated classical dance gestures meet elements of folk dance, while OCD Love is an erotic exploration of lovers.

The festival also features the Australian premiere of Red, a new short film by Archibald Prize-winning painter Del Kathryn Barton and starring Oscar-winning Australian actress Cate Blanchett. The film is inspired by the bizarre mating ritual of the red-back spider.

Wainwright will perform his symphonic concert Prima Donna and highlights from Rufus Does Judy, the artist’s recreation of Judy Garland’s 1961 Carnegie Hall concert, which he only presents once every 10 years.

British company Complicite presents its immersive theatre experience The Encounter, while another theatre highlight is Schaubühne Berlin’s sinister production of Richard III, directed by Thomas Ostermeier. The lead performance by Lars Eidinger has been described as “mesmerising”.

Andrew Bovell’s adaptation of Kate Grenville’s The Secret River, directed by Armfield, is set to be one of the festival highlights. The drama, which won six Helpmann awards, will be staged at the Anstey Hill quarry, a natural outdoor amphitheatre.

The classical music program includes a one-night-only performance of one of the first operas ever staged, Monteverdi’s L’Orfeo, which will be re-created by baroque ensemble Concerto Italiano.

Among home-grown productions is the premiere of William Yang and Annette Shun Wah’s stage production, The Backstories, which will explore the Asian-Australian experience.

The Adelaide Festival runs concurrently with Adelaide Fringe, Adelaide Writers’ Week and Womadelaide. The Adelaide Festival is held at various venues in Adelaide from March 3-19, 2017. Bookings: www.adelaidefestival.com.au.

REPORT by  Danny Gocs