John Allison

Mar 6, 2025 | australianbookreview.com.au | Robyn Archer |Michael Shmith |John Allison |Peter Tregear

These are challenging times for Australia’s national opera company, and not just because many critics and operamanes question whether Opera Australia is in fact remotely ‘national’ in terms of programming. Since 2020 the company has recorded consecutive operating losses. Recently, it lost its artistic director (Jo Davies) and its CEO (Fiona Allan). Reviews of some of its 2024 productions were lukewarm at best.

Dec 2, 2024 | playbill.com | John Allison

The year 2024 has seen one of the biggest celebrations yet of Czech music in all its forms across the cultural sphere, with something of a grand finale taking place here at Carnegie Hall with the Czech Philharmonic under the baton Chief Conductor and Music Director Semyon Bychkov.

Sep 24, 2023 | australianbookreview.com.au | John Allison

Wagnerians are like elephants: they never forget. Though the Royal Opera House may have become less conscientious about printing performance histories in its handsome red-covered programs, for many the memories of past Ring cycles at Covent Garden live on. That may not always be a healthy thing – there are of course few more necrophiliac artforms than opera – but it’s impossible to view the opening of Barrie Kosky’s new Ring in isolation.

Aug 7, 2023 | classical-music.com | John Allison

One of the foremost women composers of all time' was how Witold Lutosławski remembered Grażyna Bacewicz. As a great moral conscience of modern music, Lutosławski was never given to exaggeration, and this view of his colleague had little to do with the fact that they were fellow Poles.

Jul 11, 2023 | classical-music.com | John Allison