Der Tod in Venerdig

'There is indeed in every artist's nature a wanton and treacherous proneness to side with beauty'

Opera Australia's current revival of Jim Sharman's 1989 production of Benjamin Britten's final opera Death in Venice (1973) is transcendent. The new OA music director Richard Hickox is a Britten devotee, and as Gustav von Aschenbach Philip Langridge achieves an utter mastery of text, music and character which I cannot remember seeing in the theatre before. Why does this sad tale of the mortal need for beauty require so much retelling?

Death Allstars
Gustav Mahler
Thomas Mann
Luchino Visconti
Benjamin Britten
Richard Hickox
Philip Langridge
Graeme Pushee
Peter Coleman-Wright
Jim Sharman
Brian Thompson
Luciana Arrighi
Meryl Tankard