Seven must-see shows in April
From West Side Story’s Tony and Maria on Sydney Harbour to Tom Gleeson’s return to stand-up in Melbourne, entertainment options are hot next month.
We’ve read all the listings pages, so you don’t have to. Here is our monthly guide to some of the best arts action happening around the country in April.
Opera
Handa Opera on Sydney Harbour – Opera Australia
It doesn’t get much more Sydney than HOSH, even if this year’s instalment will recreate New York’s urban jungle on a giant stage at Mrs Macquarie’s Point.
When it premiered harbourside in 2019, Leonard Bernstein’s West Side Story became Opera Australia’s most successful ever HOSH production, so it’s little wonder the COVID-battered company is bringing it back.
This time Maria will be played by Nina Korbe, a First Nations soprano in her professional theatrical debut.
In a nice full-circle moment, Korbe – who boasts actor Leah Purcell as an aunty – was in OA’s regional scholarship program as a young singer.
As usual, expect big amplified sound (sorry purists), complex mass choreography, and a nightly fireworks display.
Handa Opera on Sydney Harbour is at Fleet Steps, Mrs Macquarie’s Point until April 21.
Music
For The Love Of Music with Chat 10 Looks 3 – Australian Chamber Orchestra
Here’s a recipe for attracting new audiences to fine music. Take popular ABC journalists and Chat 10 Looks 3 podcasters Leigh Sales and Annabel Crabb – the former a self-described “enthusiastic amateur” cellist – mix them with the Australian Chamber Orchestra, and stir.
The chief Chatters will grill the players on how they broke into the competitive industry, what it’s like lugging around priceless instruments, and why music has such a mystical hold over us all. Expect artistic director Richard Tognetti to be asked to show his neck callus at some point.
Interspersed with the banter will be music including Tchaikovsky’s Andante Cantabile arranged for cello and orchestra, Piazzolla’s fiery Libertango and US singer/songwriter Sufjan Stevens’ infectious Run Rabbit Run.
Theatre
Into The Shimmering World – Sydney Theatre Company
There’s some serious star power treading Sydney Theatre Company’s boards in April, when stage and screen royalty Kerry Armstrong and Colin Friels unite for Angus Cerini’s new Australian epic, Into The Shimmering World.
Ray (Friels) and Floss (Armstrong) are an old-school farming couple, the bond between them seemingly as strong as their connection to the land.
However, as a once-in-a-generation drought breaks, the program notes promise us “earth-shattering change and transformation”.
Armstrong says she wants audiences “to see what it’s like to love somebody as high as the sky and wide as the mountains.”
Friels describes the play as “quintessentially Australian”, an opinion to be respected from an actor many would describe in the same way.
Into The Shimmering World is at Sydney’s Wharf 1 Theatre, Walsh Bay from April 2.
Barracking For The Umpire – Black Swan State Theatre Company
A play about AFL has good prospects for success in footy-mad Perth. So it has proved with this Andrea Gibbs original commissioned by Black Swan, which is back for another season after proving a hit in its 2022 rookie year.
Donnybrook Football Club is about to bestow a Lifetime Achievement Award on its favourite son, Doug Williams (Steve La Marquand).
The family of the retired hard-man are coming back home for the celebration, including son Ben – also now a pro footy player – and sports journalist daughter Mena. They’re unaware of Doug’s memory lapses and odd behaviour that wife Delveen (Pippa Grandison) has begun to notice.
While the long-term impact that AFL has on its players’ bodies and brains is a focus of the play, it also explores issues of tolerance and gender equality.
Barracking For The Umpire commences April 23 at Subiaco Arts Centre.
Visual Art
Sydney Biennale – White Bay Power Station and other Sydney venues
Adelaide Biennial of Australian Art: Inner Sanctum – Art Gallery of South Australia
If it’s been a while between gallery visits, biennales are a handy way of catching up on the state of the arts.
The 24th edition of Sydney Biennale, Ten Thousand Suns, is led by artistic directors Cosmin Costinaș and Inti Guerrero and features dynamic artworks, large-scale installations and site-specific projects by 88 artists and collectives from 47 countries.
They’re optimistic, apparently, with the directors promising “a challenge to the Western fatalistic constructions of the apocalypse, by embracing a hopeful outlook around a possible future lived in joy, produced in common and shared widely”.
If nothing else, you can have a stickybeak at Walsh Bay Power Station, open to the public for the first time in a century as a host for works including Kaylene Whiskey’s giant female superhero models.
Meanwhile, the 18th Adelaide Biennial of Australian Art is curated by José Da Silva and offers an encounter with 24 artists and poets interested in the human condition. The project unfolds across exhibitions, performances and talks that promise to “explore our engagement with the world and each other”.
Sydney Biennale and Adelaide Biennial run throughout April.
Comedy
Melbourne International Comedy Festival
We could all use a laugh right now, and Melbourne is always the best place to get one in April thanks to the Comedy Festival.
A highlight of this edition will be Tom Gleeson, now a bona fide star from the perennially high-rating Hard Quiz, doing his first stand-up shows in three years.
Also around town will be big local names like Hannah Gadsby and Dave Hughes, and blow-ins like Ireland’s David O’Doherty. “Just don’t say laughter’s the best medicine,” O’Doherty reminds us in a festival promo. “I think the pando showed the best medicine is actually Pfizer.”
The Melbourne International Comedy Festival runs until April 21.
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