THE DETAILS
Dreamscapes, Ilott Theatre, Wellington Town Hall, today, 4pm
‘‘It’s a beautiful evocative work. We saw that it was a beautiful opportunity to bring some New Zealand works into the mix.’’
The international musical mix in Dreamscapes is reflected in the shows Cormack will be checking out when she is down here from Auckland – the New Zealand opera Hohepa and Canada’s The Galileo Project: Music of the Spheres.
LThe Animals and Children Took to the Streets and the exquisite and charming White, I shed a silent tear as I sensed the end coming into view.
But, just when I thought things were winding down, the last wave of festival productions hit Wellington’s stages and deciding what to attend on Wednesday night was a huge dilemma – Thomas Friedman, Private Peaceful, Sharon Shannon, Shivkumar Sharma, James Hill or the piece de resistance, James Thierree’s Raoul? For those at Thursday night’s opening of Hohepa, they were witness to a landmark new New Zealand opera.
For me, tomorrow’s closure represents far more than the end of the 2012 New Zealand International Arts Festival. It is closure of six years as the artistic director of this extraordinary organisation and an imminent departure from a city I’ve fallen in love with. But it’s not over just yet! Many have already been entranced by Raoul. The emails and tweets in response to this show have been phenomenal. There are two performances of Raoul left and whilst I’ve already seen the work twice, I will be there for a third viewing. I urge you to get along to the St James. Beautiful Burnout’s long run will come to an end on Sunday. For the company it marks the end of the Australasian tour, but word has it that the production will be revived in the future for its second British tour.
Hohepa opened on Thursday night at the Opera House and has two more performances this weekend.
Many have made new friends at the Telstraclear Festival Club and partaken in the post-show celebrations and conversations. If you haven’t had a chance to take a peek inside make sure you do so this weekend, I’m afraid that Cantina is completely sold out, but there are still a few tickets to Tiki Taane’s show tonight.
I’m catching the final performance of Private Peaceful at 2pm today and as part of my last hurrah, clocking up five shows this weekend – plus intending to take the time to watch First Contact 2012 in its entirety.
So what of this festival, has it been a success? How does one actually measure success? Is it just the box office figure, the audience numbers or the range of the