Opera’s natural habitat may be metropolitan arts centres but the background to Opera Queensland’s Festival of Outback Opera is big sky country.
Adam Lopez has an astral, crystaline purity, Tobias Merz sounds like burnished silver, and Hartley Newnham like rolled gold.
This arrangement gives chamber musicians the opportunity to participate in Mahler's masterpiece, an opportunity which most of them have probably never had.
Watching this charismatically chaotic legend crack jokes, it was the easiest hour I've spent laughing in a long time.
Hurrah for the bristling, infectious fun and gaiety and energy which breezes through the show’s dramatic arc and dance routines. The Australian cast is gifted.