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Peter Rose

Peter Rose

In 2001 Peter Rose became the Editor of Australian Book Review. Previously he was a publisher at Oxford University Press throughout the 1990s. He has published several books of poetry, a family memoir, Rose Boys, and two novels, the most recent being Roddy Parr (Fourth Estate, 2010). He edited the 2007 and 2008 editions of The Best Australian Poems (Black Inc.). His newest book of poems is Rag (Gazebo Books, 2023). Peter Rose’s long experience in publishing and the literary world complements the magazine’s history of central involvement in Australian letters.

Faust (Opera Australia)

ABR Arts 23 February 2015
Scottish director David McVicar’s importance to Opera Australia – after his acclaimed Don Giovanni in 2014 – grows with this new production of his Covent Garden Faust, which is currently being seen in Sydney. The production dates back to 2004. The London opening night, which I attended, was a starry occasion, with Antonio Pappano in the pit and five internationally renowned principals: Rober ... (read more)

The Flying Dutchman (Victorian Opera)

ABR Arts 16 February 2015
For many of us – those of us not in the Farnham faction – this was our first visit to the Palais Theatre in three decades. (It has mostly been used as a rock venue since the Australian Opera decamped.) So there was much anticipation before the opening night of Victorian Opera’s The Flying Dutchman, perhaps the most ambitious production in the company’s ten-year history. The Palais, it mus ... (read more)

Prime Minister's Literary Awards

ABR Arts 17 December 2014
Much has been written about the Prime Minister’s Literary Awards (PMLAs), now in their seventh year. Advances was at the National Gallery of Victoria on 8 December when the winners were named. An opulent affair, it was televised by Sky News and SBS à la the Man Booker Prize. The Great Hall – deemed rather small by one distinguished literary editor from Sydney – was full of publishers and jo ... (read more)

Falstaff (Opera Australia)

ABR Arts 08 December 2014
With the third of its spring offerings, Opera Australia again demonstrated the overall strength of the ensemble and the consistently fine playing of which Orchestra Victoria is capable.  This Falstaff is a revival of Simon Phillips’s production, first performed in 1995 (Adelaide) and starrily led by Bryn Terfel in 1999 (Sydney), his first Falstaff. Hugh Halliday is the ‘revival director ... (read more)

Don Pasquale (Opera Australia)

ABR Arts 24 November 2014
Epicœne, or The Silent Woman is one of Ben Jonson’s most witty and least familiar satires. First performed in 1609 and published in 1616, it is set in contemporary London. Morose, a well-named old bachelor, is intent on finding a bride who will give him an heir so that he can disinherit his nephew, Sir Dauphine Eugenie. Morose, a famous misanthrope, detests noise (‘the perpetuity of ringing h ... (read more)

Tosca (Opera Australia)

ABR Arts 17 November 2014
Opera Australia’s spring season in Melbourne opened with John Bell’s production of Tosca, which had its première in Sydney, in June 2013. The company is now adding strong readings of masterworks to its repertoire: this Tosca preceded David McVicar’s brilliant production of Don Giovanni, first performed in Sydney in August and bound for Melbourne next autumn. Both productions are likely to s ... (read more)

Rodelinda (Melbourne Chamber Orchestra)

ABR Arts 05 October 2014
There were few opportunities to hear Handel’s opera Rodelinda, regina de’ Longobardi during the two centuries that followed its première in 1725. Although the opera was a great success at first (Handel said of the 1731 London revival, ‘it took’), it soon fell into obscurity, along with most of Handel’s many operas. A few productions of Rodelinda in the first half of the twentieth centur ... (read more)

Peter Rose reviews 'Joe Cinque's Consolation' by Helen Garner

September 2004, no. 264 02 October 2014
Already, Anu Singh’s story is grimly familiar. Now free again, just thirty-one, she has entered the popular pantheon of malefactors. Her attractive face appears in the newspapers, taut with self-justification. There is talk of a documentary. Notoriety, even a kind of celebrity – that amoral nirvana – is hers. If Singh’s deepest motivation for killing Joe Cinque (the victim in th ... (read more)

Peter Rose reviews 'The Spare Room' by Helen Garner

May 2008, no. 301 01 October 2010
The Spare Room marks Helen Garner’s return to fiction after a long interval. Since Cosmo Cosmolino (1992), she has concentrated on non-fiction and journalism: newspaper columns and feature articles. She has speculated in public about her distance from fiction, while giving us The First Stone (1995) – an account of an incident at a Melbourne university and its bizarre aftermath – and the lanc ... (read more)

Peter Rose reviews 'The Riders' (Victorian Opera)

November 2014, no. 366 01 November 2014
Here is a fine new Australian opera from Victorian Opera. Composer Iain Grandage and librettist Alison Croggon have taken Tim Winton’s Booker-shortlisted novel The Riders (1994) and created a highly expressive work. Marion Potts directs it on a wide but stark stage furnished only with wooden saw horses. There is a balcony and a revolve, but mostly Potts chooses to observe her anguished and intro ... (read more)