Brilliant Artists in Trio
A volume of three feature pieces.
1. Janet Baker, the Wind in Her Hair.
Opera's Dame Janet, now retired from the stage to song performance, takes to sea on a yacht, the better to understand the rhythms of Elgar's Sea Pictures, of which she is already the world's authority.
She was playing with the sound of the waves from the bow, it seemed to me, "Never before under sail', she said. It was very close to song.
2. St Brigid and the Wizard.
Paula Dawson is an artist who works with holograms. Most famous of her works is a virtual re-creation of her 1989 New Year's Eve party room the following morning, in which the debris recalls the actions in time past.
Here, she builds a hologram of the Holy Spirit, for the worshippers in St Brigid's Church, working throughout the night on a tremor-insulated stage near Adelaide.
3. Max Gillies, the Character Onstage.
Watches one of the finest character actors in the world, perform political satire to live audiences.
Gillies' own face is not as well known as those he has played behind, and whenever bailed up by some passing admirer he is deeply pleased, but his eyes cloud as if with a passing fear that he may be asked to prove himself now with a short performance as Ronald Regan or the Queen of England, right here on the footpath.
