Arts and Entertainment Archive

Tokyo-born soprano Hiromi Omura received rapturous applause when she sang the haunting aria from Madama Butterfly, “Un Bel Di Vedremmo”, at the Sydney Opera House last night. As  Cio-Cio-San, the trusting child bride of cavalierly insensitive and caddish US Naval lieutenant, Benjamin …

Wielding a neon tube, spitting venom and tugging coquettishly at the hem of her trademark school uniform, no-one was better at being bad than Divinyls front woman Chrissy Amphlett. The snarling pout, the eye-grazing fringe and the Lolita-esque sex appeal made for …

Eva (Meredith Penman) washes up on the shore of an Australian seaside town, missing a finger and her memory. She is carried to safety in the open arms of Bob (Iain Sinclair), a benevolent Aussie bloke. Bob offers Eva dry clothes, a …

Fresh and feisty new comedies featuring Springboard winners Amelia Ryan and duo Justin Locke and Jordan Shanks will debut this Saturday night as part of the Sydney Fringe Festival. Amelia Ryan’s exhilarating straight-from-the-shoulder comedy cabaret Amelia Ryan is a Storm in a D-Cup will entertain Fringe-lovers …

The Sydney Latin American Film Festival filled Sydney with love from September 6 to 16. The opening night of the festival began at the Dendy Quays then continued with a fiesta at the Paragon city bar, filling a full-cinema crowd with tequila …

Water is an engrossing production whose pace does not let up throughout its 85 interval-free minutes. Its use of multimedia is both inventive and effective, providing a complexity and depth that fills the stage. A collaborative work, Water brings together the UK’s innovative Filter …

The story of US pop singer Karen Carpenter is well-known: the squeaky clean all-American girl-next-door who, with her brother Richard as the duo The Carpenters, had sunny hit after sunny hit during the cloudy 1970s. What is maybe not so well known …

Jazz singer Crystal Barreca has found her groove. For a few years now I have had the pleasure of hearing Barreca singing around Sydney’s (and now Canberra’s) jazz spots, cafes and holes-in-the-wall. I most recently remember hearing her up front of the …

Six years ago, when Californian Jonah Matranga was last in Australia, he played at the ill-fated Hopetoun and the now re-ignited Annandale. Spotting the Sando down the hill on King Street, with the recent addition of a bright red sale sign, did he …

Women play a big role in the 69th Venice International Film Festival which kicked off on August 29 and will run at the Venice Lido until September 8, writes Ilaria Bettinelli. Directed by Alberto Barbera and organised by La Biennale di Venezia, …