I declare that the weekend at Ukaria in the Adelaide Festival is a unique jewel in the musical calendar of Australia, where venue, audience, and performers, embraced by the curators of the weekend, combine to produce an experience as close to ideal as can be imagined.

An evening when three different ballets are danced to a single score is a remarkable event. When that score is the inscrutable, un-danceable-to score that is Beethoven’s string quartet “Grosse Fuge” op 133, it becomes extraordinary.

The 150 Psalms project mounted by the Adelaide Festival is unlike any other I’ve ever seen.

You might not think that the ethics of the Hippocratic oath would provide a stimulating plot for the theatre, but the way Robert Icke’s drama interweaves this with all kinds of race, gender, and class prejudices makes this work a classic document of contemporary England.

Cock Cock..Who’s There? is a documentary show, devised and acted by Finnish-Egyptian filmmaker Samira Elagoz, in which she confronts her own experiences of rape.

When Ohlsson’s gigantic figure strode onto the stage and sat down at the piano, he made it look like a toy. It reminded me of Schroder in the Peanuts cartoons. And sure enough, he played Beethoven.

The myth of Faust, a brilliant man who sells his soul to the devil in return for a life unconstrained by any moral laws, fascinated the 19th century.

Farnace, Vivaldi’s personal favourite among his operas, and one of the most popular in his own time, was given its Australian premiere last night by the wonderful outfit that is Pinchgut Opera.

I have rarely heard an audience so unanimously thrilled by something innovative in an opera performance. This is a wonderful experience of theatre.

The Bangalow Music Festival, jewel of the classical music calendar of the Northern Rivers of NSW, has just had its 18th incarnation.