Review: A Midsummer Night’s Dream

Delve into the sublime, surreal and a little bit sexy this Halloween with the Royal New Zealand Ballet’s rebirth of their iconic ballet A Midsummer Night’s Dream. A co-production with the Queensland Ballet and first performed in 2015, this stunning performance combines the late Liam Scarlett’s choreography with Felix Mendelssohn’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream score […]

Review: Romeo & Juliet

Image credit: Stephen A’Court Reviewed by Talia Carlisle What a magical place Wellington is, when you can start your evening with gin and fresh seafood at Cinderella’s for the Wellington on a Plate Launch – and pop down to the St James Theatre, home of the Royal New Zealand Ballet for their opening night of […]

Review: Venus Rising

The Royal New Zealand Ballet is back for their final offering this year, a trio of celestial ballets within the show Venus Rising. I’ve been waiting to see this show for a couple of years now, for it’s been delayed twice by COVID, so it was an absolute delight to finally catch it at its […]

Review: Macbeth

I went into Macbeth at the St James completely cold – I know Verdi’s later operas, including his later Shakespeare operas; Otello and Falstaff.  But I’ve somehow missed Macbeth, and decided to keep it that way, I guess because it’s so exciting to go into something completely fresh and new, even if it was written […]

Tosca top notch

When I invited my friend Keith to Tosca and he told me he’d seen it before, I asked for no spoilers. He sent me a text saying “Psh. It’s an opera. There is singing. People die. From a feminist view it is problematic. That’s about all there is to it”. His text was true, but also […]