Bliss, Opera Australia, Edinburgh Festival Theatre | reviews, news & interviews
Bliss, Opera Australia, Edinburgh Festival Theatre
Bliss, Opera Australia, Edinburgh Festival Theatre
Hotly anticipated new Australian opera is hoist by its absurdly trendy Leftist petard
Monday, 06 September 2010
'The low was Peter Coleman-Wright's Harry, not unstable enough for a man enduring an earth-shattering mid-life crisis'
Here we go again. Art takes on capitalism, round 4,598,756. The blissful life of Harry Joy, ad exec extraordinaire, beloved father of two, is (surprise, surprise) not quite what it seems. His wife is having an affair, his daughter is fellating his son for drugs and his business clients are spreading cancer. He thinks he's in hell. But this ain't hell; it's the greedy, bourgeois reality of a capitalist West. Stalin would have been mighty proud of Australian Brett Dean's new opera, Bliss, which was receiving its European premiere at the Edinburgh International Festival.
Here we go again. Art takes on capitalism, round 4,598,756. The blissful life of Harry Joy, ad exec extraordinaire, beloved father of two, is (surprise, surprise) not quite what it seems. His wife is having an affair, his daughter is fellating his son for drugs and his business clients are spreading cancer. He thinks he's in hell. But this ain't hell; it's the greedy, bourgeois reality of a capitalist West. Stalin would have been mighty proud of Australian Brett Dean's new opera, Bliss, which was receiving its European premiere at the Edinburgh International Festival.
Bliss isn't the best opera to go to with anyone who knows anything about the real world
Share this article
more Opera
Simon Boccanegra, Hallé, Elder, Bridgewater Hall, Manchester review - thrilling, magnificent exploration
Verdi’s original version of the opera brought to exciting life
Aci by the River, London Handel Festival, Trinity Buoy Wharf Lighthouse review - myths for the #MeToo age
Star singers shine in a Handel rarity
Carmen, Royal Opera review - strong women, no sexual chemistry and little stage focus
Damiano Michieletto's new production of Bizet’s masterpiece is surprisingly invertebrate
La scala di seta, RNCM review - going heavy on the absinthe?
Rossini’s one-acter helps young performers find their talents to amuse
Death In Venice, Welsh National Opera review - breathtaking Britten
Sublime Olivia Fuchs production of a great operatic swansong
Salome, Irish National Opera review - imaginatively charted journey to the abyss
Sinéad Campbell Wallace's corrupted princess stuns in Bruno Ravella's production
Jenůfa, English National Opera review - searing new cast in precise revival
Jennifer Davis and Susan Bullock pull out all the stops in Janáček's moving masterpiece
theartsdesk in Strasbourg: crossing the frontiers
'Lohengrin' marks a remarkable singer's arrival on Planet Wagner
Giant, Linbury Theatre review - a vision fully realised
Sarah Angliss serves a haunting meditation on the strange meeting of giant and surgeon
Der fliegende Holländer, Royal Opera review - compellingly lucid with an austere visual beauty
Bryn Terfel's Dutchman is a subtly vampiric figure in this otherworldly interpretation
The Magic Flute, English National Opera review - return of an enchanted evening
Simon McBurney's dark pantomime casts its spell again
Così fan tutte, Welsh National Opera review - relevance reduced to irrelevance
School for lovers not much help to the singers
Add comment