Peter Craven

1 week ago | spectator.com.au | Peter Craven

Sometimes you’re just too clapped out to attend the most sparkling bit of theatre and so it was for your columnist the night of the opening of the great Max Gillies’ one-man show at Melbourne’s fortyfivedownstairs. It sounds however like a delight. The subterranean venue (impossible for the halt down those rickety stairs) has seen its wonders.

2 weeks ago | spectator.com.au | Peter Craven

Who would have thought? The arena concert version of Les Miserables, Claude Michel Schönberg and Alain Boublil’s sung-through extravaganza is no mere spectacle – it is a spectacular achievement. The sound quality is impeccable, every word is utterly comprehensible and at the same time we get massive close-up screens of the actor-singers.

3 weeks ago | spectator.com.au | Peter Craven

Bill Henson, the greatest Australian photographer, has a show at the Roslyn Oxley9 Gallery at 6pm Friday 16 May. It’s exciting that Melbourne Opera are putting on that very grand and moving French opera Samson and Delilah at Melbourne’s Palais on 1 and 2 June. It is one of the mightiest of all operas and it has a tragic intensity of form that makes it Saint-Saëns one opera that has stayed in the catalogue where he is otherwise best known for that playful piece Carnival of the Animals.

1 month ago | spectator.com.au | Peter Craven

We sometimes forget how much opera provides a captivating alternative to classic drama but this was written all over Opera Australia’s Verdi Gala concert with Nicole Car which was such a triumph the other week. And it’s pretty obviously the rationale for Angelina Jolie’s inhabitation of the role of Callas in her epic Maria.

1 month ago | smh.com.au | Peter Craven

By Peter Craven May 7, 2025 — 12.00am, register or subscribe to save articles for later. Add articles to your saved list and come back to them any time. FICTIONMy Name is Emilia Del ValleIsabel AllendeBloomsbury, $32.99What a strange and dazzling writer Isabel Allende has become.