Sydney Festival 2007

Sydney Morning Herald

Thursday November 30, 2006

Words Steve Dow

From musical balloons to Samuel Beckett, there's more than enough to satisfy even the most hungry culture vulture.

If you're looking for Fergus Linehan this summer, you'll probably find the Sydney Festival director in the Spiegeltent, an art nouveau mirrored mobile salon to be erected in Hyde Park. In the 1930s, Marlene Dietrich sang Falling In Love Again in the Belgium-built ballroom that today still travels the festivals of the world. In Sydney, the tent will host the carnival sideshow burlesque La Clique, some cool jazz players and singer-songwriters. After-show drinks will also be served to artists and their admirers. Says Linehan: "You haven't lived if you haven't been in the Spiegeltent."

Linehan, who is heading into his second festival, promises more shows, more spectacle and more large touring companies this year. Here are the highlights:

Sky Orchestra

Up, up and away with the magnificent seven balloons. Weather permitting, the Sydney Festival literally launches at dawn on Saturday, January 6, when British sound artist Luke Jerram and composer Dan Jones launch balloons across the city's west. Each balloon plays a different element of the pair's musical score. Slumbering Sydneysiders will wake to dreamscape music. Even more dreamy, it's free. Repeat flyovers on January 7 and 8.

The Adventures Of Snugglepot & Cuddlepie and Little Ragged Blossom

The gumnuts of Australian children's author May Gibbs's bush world (below) were always lyrical but now we can sing along. Company B director Neil Armfield teams with writer John Clarke and composer Alan John to bring a feast of fun for children and adults, with Simon Burke as Mr Lizard, Kris McQuade as Mrs Snake, Tim Richards as Snugglepot and Ursula Yovich as Ragged Blossom. Theatre Royal, MLC Centre. January 9-31. Tickets $25.20-$55.20.

Lou Reed's Berlin

Reed took us for a walk on the wild side with his landmark Transformer album in 1972. A year later, he released the concept album Berlin, which the critics panned. Fergus Linehan jokes it was the "most depressing album ever written" but believes it's the right time for a theatrical concert version, given "everyone is now doing concept albums". The world premiere in New York in December will be closely followed by its Australian debut at the festival. Reed, 64, will be backed by strings and brass and a 20-piece choir led by Sydney Festival 2006 drawcard Antony of Antony and the Johnsons. New York filmmaker Julian Schnabel of Before Night Falls fame will direct them.

State Theatre, January 18-20. Tickets $85-$120.

Madeleine Peyroux

The US jazz singer-songwriter's alto has been compared to the smokiness of the great Lady Day - Billie Holiday - although this lady's vanishing acts are more akin to Agatha Christie. Peyroux, 32, plumped for life as a busker in Paris for several years despite the success of her 1996 debut album, Dreamland. Last year, her record company hired a private eye to track her down when she absconded from promotional duties after her long-awaited second album, Careless Love. Phil Johnson, critic for The Independent in London, who caught a Peyroux performance in Bristol in July, speculates the singer might well be an erratic Paris busker at heart but lauded her "unforced, natural vibe". State Theatre, January 21-22. Tickets $55-$75.

Telophaza

Israeli dancers going "gaga" to electro-pop tracks? Gaga is actually Batsheva Dance Company artistic director Ohad Naharin's personal movement technique, which his dancers employ. Four video screens projecting live feeds of the dancers' faces augment the spectacle. The Village Voice's Deborah Jowitt says Naharin "brilliantly deploys a playful army of performers" as a taped voice militaristically urges the audience to copy the moves. The New York Times critic John Rockwell described it as "disconcerting" in the context of the current Middle East violence. You decide.

Capitol Theatre, January 6-10. Tickets $55-$85.

Uncle Vanya

Upper-class rural life in Tsarist Russia unfolded in its own sweet time so take heed. While St Petersburg's Maly Theatre breathes life into Chekhov's classic tale, the play is in Russian with English sub-titles and runs for more than three hours. Yet Dominic Cavendish, critic for London's The Daily Telegraph, says director Lev Dodin's "provocatively unhurried" pacing rewards the audience, "deepening our appreciation of the characters' inner lives". Sydney Theatre at Walsh Bay, January 22-27. Tickets $45-$70.

Lost and Found Orchestra

Music on the fly? The creators of Stomp, Luke Cresswell and Steve McNicholas, who are based in Brighton, England, take their household-objects-as-musical-instruments concept to an orchestral level, with bowed saws for strings and bottles and kettles for woodwind and brass. Musicians are strung up as aerialists to swoop across the stage and audience. This is a novelty act, writes Lyn Gardner, critic for The Guardian, "but one that is unpretentious, infectious and great fun". Concert Hall, Sydney Opera House, January 15-21. Tickets $50-$80.

About An Hour

It sold out last year so the About An Hour series is back. For $25 a ticket, avail yourself of "absurd Russian theatre, mystifying French performance art, hard-hitting Canadian dance and cutting-edge New York hip-hop". Sydney Opera House and Riverside Theatres, January 8-27.

Beckett season

Dublin's famous Gate theatre brings three one-act Samuel Beckett plays to Sydney: I'll Go On, performed by Barry McGovern; Eh Joe, performed by Michael Gambon; and the world premiere of a new staging of First Love, starring Ralph Fiennes. So many big names in one festival. How

did Linehan convince the likes of Reed, Peyroux and Fiennes to fly all this way? "Sydney is one of these places everyone wants to go," he says modestly. "They just need a reason." Parade Theatre, NIDA, January 9-21.

Tickets $55.

All tickets to Sydney Festival events can be booked at www.sydneyfestival.org.au. Phone: 8248 6500 to request

a brochure.

© 2006 Sydney Morning Herald

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