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Michael Shmith

Michael Shmith

Michael Shmith is a Melbourne-based writer and editor. His latest book, Merlyn (Hardie Grant, 2021) is a biography of the widow of Sidney Myer.

Michael Shmith reviews 'I Will Be Cleopatra: An actress’s journey' by Zoë Caldwell

November 2001, no. 236 16 September 2022
‘I knew I was bright, but not special’, writes Zoë Caldwell early on in her pithy, telling memoir. Still earlier (indeed, in the first paragraph), she says that she knew, even from an early age, she was destined to perform: ‘ … to stand in front of people, keeping them awake and in their seats, by telling other people’s stories and using other people’s words. I knew this because it wa ... (read more)

‘Australian World Orchestra: A combination of telepathy, instinct, and love’ by Michael Shmith

ABR Arts 05 September 2022
To place the Australian World Orchestra (AWO) in a truly global context, and before I deal with last Wednesday night’s triumphant concert in Hamer Hall, I must briefly expand my terms of reference. Only a week or so ago, before this concert, the orchestra and its conductor, the great Zubin Mehta, were in Britain. On 19 August, they played at the Edinburgh Festival with a challenging program: We ... (read more)

‘A Winter’s Journey: An overwhelming version of Schubert’s great song cycle’ by Michael Shmith

ABR Arts 18 July 2022
Forty-four years ago, Andrew Porter, that peerless and prolific music reviewer of The New Yorker magazine, cast a prophecy: I trust I am wrong, but sometimes it seems to me that when Elisabeth Schwarzkopf, Elisabeth Söderström, Peter Pears and Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau retire, lieder singing will become a lost art. There is no one in the younger generation who commands as they do the understan ... (read more)

‘Die Walküre’: A triumphant performance from Melbourne Opera

ABR Arts 11 February 2022
Richard Wagner’s famous pronouncement, ‘Kinder, schafft Neues!’ (‘Children, create something new!’), has often been the inspiration to take daring creative risks, particularly (but not exclusively) with productions of his works. Using The Ring as a starting point, directorial licence has been extended in all sorts of intriguing ways that have, over the years, seen Valkyries roaring aroun ... (read more)

Michael Shmith reviews 'Right Here on Our Stage Tonight!: Ed Sullivan’s America' by Gerald Nachman

February 2010, no. 318 01 February 2010
In the mid twentieth century, American television was dominated by two talking horses called Mr Ed. The first, the equine hero of a sitcom also called Mr Ed (catchier than his real name, Bamboo Harvester), twisted his mouth more or less in sync with a dubbed basso profondo voice. He had lots to say, mostly preceded by an often disdainful reference to his hapless owner, Wilbur, the only person Mr E ... (read more)

Michael Shmith reviews 'Wagner and the Art of the Theatre' by Patrick Carnegy

April 2007, no. 290 01 April 2007
In the myths that inspired Wagner to write Der Ring des Nibelungen, the World Ash-Tree (Die WeltEsche) is the symbol of Wotan’s power and enlightenment and eventual downfall. As a young god, he cut a branch off the tree to fashion into his spear. In The Ring, it is not until the Prologue to Götterdämmerung, as the three Norns are weaving their rope of fate, that we are told the World Ash-Tree ... (read more)

Michael Shmith reviews 'Trio' by William Boyd

October 2020, no. 425 24 September 2020
The first three chapters of William Boyd’s beguiling new novel, Trio, are devoted to the waking habits of three people: a novelist called Elfrida Wing, stirred from slumber by the brightening morning sun; a film producer called Talbot Kydd, jolted into a new day by an erotic dream taking place on a beach; and an American actress called Anny Viklund, who, it seems, hasn’t had the time to consid ... (read more)

Michael Shmith reviews 'Self-Portrait of Percy Grainger' edited by Malcolm Gillies, David Pear, and Mark Carroll and 'Facing Percy Grainger' edited by David Pear

October 2006, no. 285 01 October 2006
To paraphrase Winston Churchill’s description of Russia as a riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma, Percy Grainger is a minstrel wrapped in a harlequin inside a jack-in-the-box. His personality, obsessions, and general eccentricities still cause one to gasp and stretch one’s eyes even almost half a century after his own hypnotic eyes closed forever. His music, too, remains quicksilver; ... (read more)

Salome (Victorian Opera)

ABR Arts 26 February 2020
For all its intense brevity, Salome is notoriously difficult to stage and perform. Richard Strauss might have adroitly described his opera (first performed in 1905) as ‘a scherzo with a fatal conclusion’, but his great admirer Gustav Mahler was closer to the mark when he said ‘deeply at work in it … is a live volcano, a subterranean fire’. Both points of view were more than justified by ... (read more)

Michael Shmith reviews 'The Europeans: Three lives and the making of a cosmopolitan culture' by Orlando Figes

January–February 2020, no. 418 16 December 2019
It was what Lawrence Durrell described as ‘the flickering of steel rails over the arterial systems of Europe’s body’ that steadily transformed nineteenth-century Europe into a cultural and social unity that would last until the outbreak of World War I. Not everyone was happy about this. Rossini, who was terrified of trains, stuck to coach travel, while others, including the German poet Heinr ... (read more)
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