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Get 20% off Theremin & Beyond with the Australian Chamber Orchestra*

Get 20% off Theremin & Beyond with the Australian Chamber Orchestra*

As a subscriber, you can save 20% on tickets to Theremin & Beyond with the Australian Chamber Orchestra, directed by Richard Tognetti.

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If you're only going to see one musical this season, let it be Beetlejuice
If you're only going to see one musical this season, let it be Beetlejuice

Sydney Morning Herald

time18-05-2025

  • Sydney Morning Herald

If you're only going to see one musical this season, let it be Beetlejuice

Everyone from a Pollyanna-ish girl scout (Rebecca Ordiz) to a dead beauty queen (Angelique Cassimatis) – not to mention Beetlejuice's own chain-smoking mother (Noni McCallum) – gets in on the action as the door to a bureaucratic underworld opens, and Lydia must find a way to cope with her loss before all hell breaks loose. Everything about Beetlejuice is super-slick and timed to perfection. The musical is so jam-packed with visual gags and satirical lyrics and outre musical hijinks you'd probably need to see the show twice to catch them all. Perfect is in his element as an equally appealing and offensive agent of chaos, poking fun at every musical theatre rule with scruffy charisma, riding a hometown vibe with some of the ad-libbed jokes. Opposite him, Karis Oka is ideally cast as Lydia, playing the show's beating black heart with a winsome but slightly vicious undertone that might just bring about a goth revival and certainly won't disappoint fans of Winona Ryder in the original movie. McCann and Johnson leap into parody as a couple diminished by suburban life – channelling shades of Brad and Janet from Rocky Horror, only, well, dead. And camp comedy is embraced with wild abandon by the supporting cast. Loading Dinner party guests are possessed into performing Harry Belafonte songs; Claire's ditzy Delia butts heads with the goth heroine in a duet that pits mindless positivity against nihilistic angst; and an entire chorus of Beetlejuices conquers the stage with gruesome … glamour is not the word. Pigs' genitals might have been removed from the show, but Beetlejuice still revels in rebelling against the appropriate and its highly orchestrated chaos does, in the end, achieve comic catharsis. We are all strange and unusual, after all, and never more so than when we refuse to admit how fleeting life is, or to embrace life knowing we're all going to die. Reviewed by Cameron Woodhead MUSIC Theremin and Beyond ★★★★ Australian Chamber Orchestra, Melbourne Recital Centre, May 17 German theremin virtuoso Carolina Eyck is a musical conjurer. Making mysterious hand gestures between the two antennas of her electronic instrument, she seemingly creates music out of thin air. Named after its Russian inventor, the theremin led the way in electronica. Because of its eerie sounds, the theremin has been a godsend for movie and television composers. Surely, Midsomer's reputation as the most murderous place in England could not have been cemented without its spooky theremin theme, nor would Hitchcock's Spellbound be so compelling without composer Miklos Rozsa's appropriation of the instrument. In this eclectic program, the Australian Chamber Orchestra celebrated the theremin's place in popular culture, creating a party atmosphere with The Beach Boys' Good Vibrations, Morricone's music for The Good, The Bad and The Ugly and an arrangement of the Star Trek theme. Classical repertory was not neglected with empathetic accounts of Bach's so-called Air on a G String, extracts from Saint-Saens' The Carnival of the Animals including its celebrated swan, and at the other end of the spectrum, a clever take on Rimsky-Korsakov's Flight of the Bumblebee. Glinka's The Lark also appeared – the song with which Theremin introduced his invention to Lenin. Holly Harrison's Hovercraft, commissioned by the ACO for Eyck, brilliantly opened up the expressive capabilities of the theremin as did Eyck's own composition Strange Birds. Reduced to some 10 players, the ACO strings led by Richard Tognetti provided diverse connective tissue with works by Brett Dean, Erwin Schulhoff and Shostakovich's Japanese friend Yasushi Akutagawa. Enlivened by the colourful addition of pianist Tamara-Anna Cislowska and percussionist Brian Nixon for much of the program, rhythmic interest also came with Offenbach's famous Can-can and Jorg Widmann's 180 Beats per Minute.

If you're only going to see one musical this season, let it be Beetlejuice
If you're only going to see one musical this season, let it be Beetlejuice

The Age

time18-05-2025

  • The Age

If you're only going to see one musical this season, let it be Beetlejuice

Everyone from a Pollyannish girl scout (Rebecca Ordiz) to a dead beauty queen (Angelique Cassimatis) – not to mention Beetlejuice's own chain-smoking mother (Noni McCallum) – gets in on the action as the door to a bureaucratic underworld opens, and Lydia must find a way to cope with her loss before all hell breaks loose. Everything about Beetlejuice is super-slick and timed to perfection. The musical is so jam-packed with visual gags and satirical lyrics and outre musical hijinks, you'd probably need to see the show twice to catch them all. Perfect is in his element as an equally appealing and offensive agent of chaos, poking fun at every musical theatre rule with scruffy charisma, riding a hometown vibe with some of the ad-libbed jokes. Opposite him, Karis Oka is ideally cast as Lydia, playing the show's beating black heart with a winsome but slightly vicious undertone that might just bring about a goth revival and certainly won't disappoint fans of Winona Ryder in the original movie. McCann and Johnson leap into parody as a couple diminished by suburban life – channelling shades of Brad and Janet from Rocky Horror, only, well, dead. And camp comedy is embraced with wild abandon by the supporting cast. Loading Dinner party guests are possessed into performing Harry Belafonte songs; Claire's ditzy Delia butts heads with the goth heroine in a duet that pits mindless positivity against nihilistic angst; and an entire chorus of Beetlejuices conquers the stage with gruesome … glamour is not the word. Pigs' genitals might have been removed from the show, but Beetlejuice still revels in rebelling against the appropriate and its highly orchestrated chaos does, in the end, achieve comic catharsis. We are all strange and unusual, after all, and never more so than when we refuse to admit how fleeting life is, or to embrace life knowing we're all going to die. Reviewed by Cameron Woodhead MUSIC Theremin and Beyond ★★★★ Australian Chamber Orchestra, Melbourne Recital Centre, May 17 German theremin virtuoso Carolina Eyck is a musical conjurer. Making mysterious hand gestures between the two antennas of her electronic instrument, she seemingly creates music out of thin air. Named after its Russian inventor, the theremin led the way in electronica. Because of its eerie sounds, the theremin has been a godsend for movie and television composers. Surely, Midsomer's reputation as the most murderous place in England could not have been cemented without its spooky theremin theme, nor would Hitchcock's Spellbound be so compelling without composer Miklos Rozsa's appropriation of the instrument. In this eclectic program, the Australian Chamber Orchestra celebrated the theremin's place in popular culture, creating a party atmosphere with The Beach Boys' Good Vibrations, Morricone's music for The Good, The Bad and The Ugly and an arrangement of the Star Trek theme. Classical repertory was not neglected with empathetic accounts of Bach's so-called Air on a G String, extracts from Saint-Saens' The Carnival of the Animals including its celebrated swan, and at the other end of the spectrum, a clever take on Rimsky-Korsakov's Flight of the Bumblebee. Glinka's The Lark also appeared – the song with which Theremin introduced his invention to Lenin. Holly Harrison's Hovercraft, commissioned by the ACO for Eyck, brilliantly opened up the expressive capabilities of the theremin as did Eyck's own composition Strange Birds. Reduced to some 10 players, the ACO strings led by Richard Tognetti provided diverse connective tissue with works by Brett Dean, Erwin Schulhoff and Shostakovich's Japanese friend Yasushi Akutagawa. Enlivened by the colourful addition of pianist Tamara-Anna Cislowska and percussionist Brian Nixon for much of the program, rhythmic interest also came with Offenbach's famous Can-can and Jorg Widmann's 180 Beats per Minute.

Aussies get early hands-on with the Nintendo Switch 2
Aussies get early hands-on with the Nintendo Switch 2

9 News

time11-05-2025

  • 9 News

Aussies get early hands-on with the Nintendo Switch 2

Nintendo has hosted an early hands-on experience for the Nintendo Switch 2 in Melbourne, with hundreds of excited gamers getting a first-look at the upcoming console. Spaces were limited, with a ballot held earlier this year to secure a spot at the event. Melbourne gamers were some of the first in the world to get hands-on with the upcoming console. (Nine) Held at Melbourne's Olympic Park, Nintendo fans filled the Centrepiece venue to experience the new console a month before launch. Games on show included Mario Kart World , Donkey Kong Bonanza and Metroid Prime 4: Beyond — which highlighted the Switch 2's mouse control feature. READ MORE: Grand Theft Auto VI set to smash records The Nintendo Switch 2 launches in Australia on June 5. (Nine) Upgraded Zelda titles and third-party games like Split Fiction were also there for gamers to play. The new console is set to be a big leap forward compared to the original Switch, with updated visuals and hardware. The most anticipated video games of 2025 View Gallery

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