Culture Buff
Lachlan Macquarie
One of the Scots who made extraordinary contributions to Australia was Lachlan Macquarie. Grantley Kieza has published several biographies including…
Natalia Aroyan and friend at Sydney Opera House
It’s summer in Sydney, so there is an Opera Season. Two productions by the distinguished British director David McVicar –…
Hugh Ramsay “Miss Nellie Patterson” 1903
This is a great time of the year to visit Canberra and the National Gallery. Despite some ‘gender equality’ grandstanding…
Portrait of Rear-Admiral William Bligh (detail) Alexander Huey, 1814
Hero or Villain? That is the question posed about William Bligh by an exhibition currently at the Australian National Maritime…
The Memory Pool
‘Tis the season to be planning your holiday reading. I take inspiration from the marvellous bookshop in the beautiful lobby…
William Dobell “Woman in a Salon (Helena Rubinstein)” 1960
She was a girl from Coleraine who became the world’s first self made multi-millionairess. Born in Krakôw, Poland in1872, she…
Caroline O’Connor is the Spider Woman
They wrote musicals based on the most unlikely material but John Kander and Fred Ebb enjoyed ultimate success with Cabaret…
Jacqueline Dark, Taryb Fiebig and Helen Sherman
Vivaldi is having further boosts to his popularity with the Brandenburg Orchestra delivering cracking performances of his Four Seasons in…
John Singer Sargent’s Madame X
Baron François Gérard would be astonished that his vast 1825 painting of The Coronation of Charles X is the inspiration…
![Andrew Tink. [Photo: Elizabeth Tink]](https://www.spectator.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/CB_26.10.19.jpg?w=410&h=275&crop=1)
Andrew Tink
A serious bout of ill-health forced him to abandon a successful career in politics but, in the intervening 10 years,…
Shirley Hazzard
A woman working on a thesis about Shirley Hazzard is a character in A Life to Come, the award-winning novel…
Anna Karenina
Tolstoy’s most fascinating character, Anna Karenina clearly fascinates David McAllister who has recently announced his 20th and final season as…
Violins of the ACO with Richard Tognetti
Every year is a year of anniversaries, not least 2020 with the 250th anniversary of Captain Cook’s voyage along the…
See You at the Toxteth
The Toxteth is a hotel on Glebe Point Road in Sydney. Cliff Hardy probably called it a pub. Hardy was…
In Vogue
A kangaroo on the beach with a model was the unsubtle cover of Vogue in December 1965. It will be…
David McVicar’s production of The Marriage of Figaro
It was hailed as a masterpiece at its premiere in Vienna in 1786; it still is a masterpiece. The Marriage…
Cast members Jonny Carr and Geraldine Hakewell
John Howard and Tom Stoppard have something quite wonderful and rare in common: they are both members of the Order…
Jeffrey Smart exhibition Constructed World
There are just a few weeks left to catch the Jeffrey Smart exhibition Constructed World at the Art Gallery of…
Culture Buff
A new book reminds us, perhaps unintentionally, that not everything that has mattered in the performing arts started with the…
Maxine Peake
We live in a time of paradoxes. The NSW Parliament has just legislated for terminations to be performed from 22…
Sylvia in Houston
Houston is a prosperous Texan city, the hub of the US oil and gas industries. And home to the city’s…
Dominic Smith
He’s an Australian-born international best-selling author. Dominic Smith was born in Brisbane in 1971 to an Australian mother and an…
King’s College choristers at ease
It was a beautiful autumn morning when we went up to Cambridge for a meeting at King’s College. Christopher Hogwood…
Paul Dyer conducting the Australian Brandenburg Orchestra
Only a person who is more or less my age can have a direct recollection of the 1953 coronation of…
Shakespeare in Love
For centuries plays have been derived from novels, myths and legends but only recently have we become used to plays…
