Murray Dahm, Author at J-Wire

The Marriage of Figaro

Murray Dahm — Fri, 01 Aug 2025 06:19:01 +0000

An opera review by Murray Dahm This is a delightful production, full of wit, insight and wonderful singing, and with flashes of the darker side of this most famous of operatic comedies. Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart’s opera (Le Nozze de Figaro to give it its Italian title) is based on Pierre Beaumarchais’ 1784 play La folle […]

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Guys & Dolls

Murray Dahm — Mon, 24 Mar 2025 06:23:25 +0000

Handa Opera on Sydney Harbour reviewed by Murray Dahm This is a great show, but it’s not opera. Frank Loesser’s Guys & Dolls (he wrote both the music and lyrics – the book (the plot and dialogue) by Jo Swerling and Abe Burrows) is based on several short stories by New York writer Damon Runyon. […]

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Il Trittico – an opera review by Murray Dahm

Murray Dahm — Fri, 05 Jul 2024 05:25:44 +0000

Puccini’s Il Trittico is a peculiar piece. Its name is the Italian for a triptych, three panels of the same (usually religious) artwork related to one another. As such, we should always think of the three operas that make it up (Il Tabaro (The Cloak), Suor Angelica (Sister Angelica), and Gianni Schicchi) as comprising one […]

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Opera expert Murray Dahm meets opera conductor Stuart Stratford

Murray Dahm — Thu, 29 Jun 2023 03:21:59 +0000

Murray Dahm has spoken to Stuart Stratford, making his Opera Australia debut as the conductor of Aida. Murray reports: He has been to Australia before – performing at the Adelaide Festival with Scottish Opera in 2020, and he conducted the opera film of The Eternity Man by Johnathan Mills about Arthur Stace (filmed in Sydney […]

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Aida – an opera review by Murray Dahm

Murray Dahm — Tue, 20 Jun 2023 09:18:04 +0000

Verdi’s Aïda (1871) is a remarkable opera for all sorts of reasons. It was initially commissioned for the opening of the Suez Canal but Verdi was reluctant to accept. He did so eventually but the Franco-Prussian war being fought in 1870 caused the sets to be stuck in besieged Paris. That meant, when the opera […]

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Rigelotto: Reviewed by Murray Dahm

Murray Dahm — Wed, 14 Jun 2023 06:00:52 +0000

Giuseppe Verdi’s Rigoletto (1851) was the composer’s sixteenth opera. Often, it is described as a middle-Verdi masterpiece and, whilst it is indeed a masterpiece – something the performance on Tuesday night reiterated – it is the ‘middle’ which has always bothered me. The compartmentalising of an artist’s output into periods has always struck me as […]

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Madama Butterfly: An opera review by Murray Dahm

Murray Dahm — Mon, 27 Mar 2023 03:03:36 +0000

This Handa Opera on Sydney Harbour (HOSH) production of Puccini’s Madama Butterfly was first seen in 2014 and here makes its triumphant return ‘home.’ Uniquely among HOSH productions, this one has been produced in Rome since its first production and it is easy to see why. The set (a deceptively simple green hill with a […]

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French-Israeli bass-baritone Yuri Kissin interviewed by Murray Dahm

Murray Dahm — Sun, 08 Jan 2023 06:14:59 +0000

Yuri Kissin began his singing career in a most unusual way – he was a stand-up comedian and doing a sketch that parodied ‘opera singing.’ Sure enough, someone in the audience ‘discovered’ him. A singing teacher at the music academy in Tel Aviv came up after the gig and said he had a real voice […]

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Carmen’s Don Jose: Diego Torre speaks with Murray Dahm

Murray Dahm — Tue, 29 Nov 2022 03:08:15 +0000

I spoke with Diego Torre ahead of Carmen on Sydney’s Cockatoo Island, in which he takes on the role of Don Jose. I opened our discussion by pointing out that Diego had just finished performing the role of Forresto in Verdi’s Attila (1847) and that Bizet’s Carmen (1875) must be a very different singing experience. […]

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Murray Dahm speaks with Carmen’s bullfighter

Murray Dahm — Wed, 23 Nov 2022 05:18:06 +0000

I last spoke with Daniel Sumegi before the Melbourne performances of Wagner’s Lohengrin earlier this year. Now he returns to Australia in Carmen on Cockatoo Island as Escamillo, the bull-fighter and lover of the gypsy Carmen after she has tired of ex-corporal Don Jose. “It is definitely a change” to be singing outdoors on Cockatoo Island […]

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