Reviews Index 2012

ALDRICH, Robert, Gay Life Stories, Thames & Hudson, 342/58, Brian McFarlane

ALEXANDER, Stephanie, A Cook’s Life, Lantern, 340/25, Gay Bilson

ALLEN, Emma, The Terrible Suitcase, Omnibus Books, 344/74, Stephanie Owen Reeder

AMIN, Manisha Jolie, Dancing to the Flute, Allen & Unwin, 344/49, Diana Carroll

ANDERSON, Jaynie (ed.), The Cambridge Companion to Australian Art, CUP, 338/28, Andrew Sayers

ANDERSON, Lauren et al. (eds), Hide Your Fires: 2012 UTS Writers’ Anthology, Figment Publishing, 344/76, Francesca Sasnaitis

APPLEBY, Rosalind, Women of Note: The Rise of Australian Women Composers, Fremantle Press, 339/41, Jillian Graham

ARMANNO, Venero, Black Mountain, UQP, 345/58, Jeffrey Poacher

ASH, Romy, Floundering, Text, 339/44, Sky Kirkham

ASHTON, Rosemary, Victorian Bloomsbury, Yale, 346/63, Margaret Harris

ATWOOD, Margaret, In Other Worlds: SF and the Human Imagination, Virago, 338/48, Melinda Harvey

AVERY, Kevin (ed.), Conversations with Clint: Paul Nelson’s Lost Interviews with Clint Eastwood 1979–1983, Continuum Books, 338/43, Jake Wilson

AVISHAI, Bernard, Promiscuous: Portnoy’s Complaint and Our Doomed Pursuit of Happiness, Yale, 347/68, Shannon Burns

BAIL, Murray, The Voyage, Text, 345/15, James Ley

BANYARD, Jan, Mystery at Riddle Gully, Fremantle Press, 342/62, Ruth Starke

BARCAN, Alan, From New Left to Factional Left: Fifty Years of Student Activism at Sydney University, Australian Scholarly Publishing, 347/63, Richard Broinowski

BARKLEY, Glenn and Lesley Harding (eds), Ken Whisson: As If, Heide Museum of Modern Art and Museum of Contemporary Art Australia, 343/51, Eileen Chanin

BARRY, Peter, We All Fall Down, Transit Lounge, 346/65, Denise O’Dea

BASE, Graeme, Little Elephants, Viking, 347/70, Joy Lawn

BEEVOR, Antony, The Second World War, Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 346/59, Robin Prior

BINET, Laurent, HHhH, Harvill Secker, 344/66, Anna Heyward

BISHOP, Janet, Cécile Debray, and Rebecca Rabinow (eds), The Steins Collect: Matisse, Picasso, and the Parisian Avant-Garde, San Francisco Museum of Modern Art/Yale, 342/32, Patrick McCaughey

BLAINEY, Geoffrey, A Short History of Christianity, Viking, 342/50, Philip Harvey

BLAND, Nick and Stephen Michael King, The Magnificent Tree, Scholastic, 344/74, Stephanie Owen Reeder

BOLTON, Ken, Four Poems, Little Esther Books, 345/68, Gig Ryan

BOLTON, Ken, Selected Poems 1975–2010, Shearsman Books, 345/68, Gig Ryan

BONGIORNO, Frank, The Sex Lives of Australians: A History, Black Inc., 344/68, Dennis Altman

BOYD, Brian, Stalking Nabokov: Selected Essays, Columbia University Press, 344/14, Paul Morgan

BOYD, Brian, Why Lyrics Last: Evolution, Cognition, and Shakespeare’s Sonnets, Harvard, 342/42, Chris Wallace-Crabbe

BOYNE, John, The Terrible Thing that Happened to Barnaby Brocket, Doubleday, 343/79, Laura Elvery

BRADFORD, Richard, Martin Amis: The Biography, Constable, 341/48, Jane Sullivan

BRENNAN, Michael, Autoethnographic, Giramondo, 346/23, Peter Kenneally

BRETT, Lily, Lola Bensky, Hamish Hamilton, 345/22, Francesca Sasnaitis

BROOKS, David, The Conversation, UQP, 346/28, Cassandra Atherton

BROWN, Honey, After the Darkness, Viking, 340/49, Alan Vaarwerk

BROWN, Jonathan, Great Wagner Conductors: A Listener’s Companion, Parrot Press, 342/30, Robert Gibson

BRUCE, Candice, The Longing, Random House, 340/43, Francesca Sasnaitis

BURKE, Janine, Nest: The Art of Birds, Allen & Unwin, 341/46, Gay Bilson

BURROWS, Deborah, A Stranger in My Street, Pan Macmillan, 342/59, Milly Main

BURTON, Pamela, The Waterlow Killings: A Portrait of a Family Tragedy, Victory Books, 347/29, Alison Broinowski

BUTTON, James, Speechless: A Year in My Father’s Business, MUP, 346/18, Joel Deane

CAHILL, Michelle, Vishvarūpa, 5 Islands Press, 340/57, Mark Tredinnick

CAMPISI, Dale (ed.), Island 129: Women, Island, 345/63, Ellena Savage

CANTWELL, John with Greg Bearup, Exit Wounds: One Australian’s War on Terror, MUP, 347/10, Nick Hordern

CAREY, Peter, The Chemistry of Tears, Hamish Hamilton, 338/25, Patrick Allington

CARO, Robert A., The Years of Lyndon Johnson: The Passage of Power, Bodley Head, 346/34, Peter Heerey

CARTER, M.A. (edited by Philip Salom), Keeping Carter, Puncher & Wattmann, 341/65, Cassandra Atherton

CARTER, Paul D., Eleven Seasons, Allen & Unwin, 342/25, Amy Baillieu

CAVANAUGH, Tony, Promise, Hachette Australia, 343/42, Dean Biron

CLEARY, Paul, Mine-Field: The Dark Side of Australia’s Resources Rush, Black Inc., 345/54, Gillian Terzis

CLEARY, Simon, Closer to Stone, UQP, 340/42, Dean Biron

COHN, Susan (ed.), Unexpected Pleasures: The Art and Design of Contemporary Jewellery, Rizzoli, 343/34, Christopher Menz

COLEMAN, Aidan, Asymmetry, Brandl & Schlesinger, 344/73, Mike Ladd

COLLINI, Stefan, What Are Universities For?, Penguin, 341/23, Glyn Davis

COLLINS, Courtney, The Burial, Allen & Unwin, 345/72, Gillian Dooley

CONRAD, Peter, Verdi and/or Wagner: Two Men, Two Worlds, Two Centuries, Thames & Hudson, 342/30, Robert Gibson

COOK, Pam, Nicole Kidman, Palgrave Macmillan/British Film Institute, 345/72, Francesca Sasnaitis

COOK, Richard M., Alfred Kazin: A Biography, Yale, 340/46, Don Anderson

COOK, Richard M. (ed.), Alfred Kazin’s Journals, Yale, 340/46, Don Anderson

COPPEL, Stephen, Out of Australia: Prints and Drawings from Sidney Nolan to Rover Thomas, British Museum, 343/18, Angus Trumble

CORNELL, Andrew (ed.), The Best Australian Business Writing 2012, NewSouth, 347/44, Gillian Terzis

CORRIS, Peter, Comeback, Allen & Unwin, 338/57, Dean Biron

COX, Paul, Tales from the Cancer Ward, Transit Lounge, 338/55, Felicity Plunkett

CRAIG, George et al. (eds), The Letters of Samuel Beckett, Volume II: 1941–1956, CUP, 341/29, Michael Morley

CRICHTON-BROWN, Nicola, Detroit and the Valley of Hillas Creek: A Social and Environmental History, Melbourne Books, 343/75, Susan Crennan

CROOME, Andrew, Midnight Empire, Allen & Unwin, 346/26, Jay Daniel Thompson

CROTHERS, Tanya (ed.), We Talked of Other Things: The Life and Letters of Arthur Wheen 1897–1971, Longueville Media, 339/54, Graeme Powell

D’ARCENS, Louise, Old Songs in the Timeless Land: Medievalism in Australian Literature 1840–1910, UWAP, 341/67, Gregory Kratzmann

DE BEAUVOIR, Simone (edited by Margaret A. Simons and Marybeth Timmermann), ‘The Useless Mouths’ and Other Literary Writings, University of Illinois Press, 339/56, Colin Nettelbeck

DE CRESPIGNY, Robin, The People Smuggler: The True Story of Ali Al Jenabi, the ‘Oskar Schindler of Asia’, Viking, 343/65, Paul Morgan

DEGENNARO, Sue, The Pros & Cons of Being a Frog, Scholastic, 344/74, Stephanie Owen Reeder

DE KRETSER, Michelle, Questions of Travel, Allen & Unwin, 345/18, Melinda Harvey

DE ZEGHER, Catherine and Gerald McMaster (eds), All Our Relations: 18^th Biennale of Sydney 2012, Biennale of Sydney, 344/62, Felicity Fenner

DAPIN, Mark (ed.), The Penguin Book of Australian War Writing, Viking, 338/40, David Day

DAVIES, Bruce with Gary McKay, Vietnam: The Complete Story of the Australian War, Allen & Unwin, 347/66, Peter Edwards

DAVIES, Julian and Phil Day, Lost Art: Two Essays on Cultural Dysfunction, Finlay Lloyd Publishers, 345/42, Scott McCulloch

DAVIES, Norman, Vanished Kingdoms: The History of Half-Forgotten Europe, Allen Lane, 346/60, Norman Etherington

DAVISON, Graeme and Kate Murphy, University Unlimited: The Monash Story, Allen & Unwin, 342/14, Brenda Niall

DESSAIX, Robert, As I Was Saying: A Collection of Musings, Vintage, 339/50, Jane Goodall

DISNEY, Dan, and then when the, John Leonard Press, 342/55, Kate Middleton

DIXON, Robert (ed.), The Novels of Alex Miller: An Introduction, Allen & Unwin, 342/40, Jane Goodall

DOBSON, Rosemary, Collected, UQP, 343/26, Susan Sheridan

DODD, Andrew, JJ Clark: Architect of the Australian Renaissance, NewSouth, 346/53, Philip Goad

DOHERTY, Peter, Sentinel Chickens: What Birds Tell Us About Our Health and the World, MUP, 345/52, Peter Menkhorst

DONALDSON, Ian, Ben Jonson: A Life, OUP, 338/16, Lisa Gorton

DOUGLAS-FAIRHURST, Robert, Becoming Dickens: The Invention of a Novelist, Harvard, 339/16, Evelyn Juers

DOUST, Jon, To the Highlands, Fremantle Press, 345/62, Jay Daniel Thompson

DOVE, Rita (ed.), The Penguin Anthology of 20^th Century American Poetry, Penguin, 339/18, Paul Kane

DOYLE, Arthur Conan (read by Robert Lindsay), The Narrative of John Smith, British Library Board, 339/64, Brian McFarlane

DREWE, Robert, Montebello: A Memoir, Hamish Hamilton, 346/26, Brian Matthews

EAGAR, Kirsty, Night Beach, Penguin, 343/78, Pam Macintyre

EARLS, Nick, Welcome to Normal, Vintage, 343/70, Jeffrey Poacher

EARLS, Nick and Terry Whidborne, Word Hunters: The Curious Dictionary, UQP, 346/68, Sophie Splatt

EDGAR, Stephen, The Red Sea: New and Selected Poems, Baskerville Publishers, 345/66, Geoffrey Lehmann

EDMOND, Martin, Dark Night: Walking with McCahon, Auckland University Press, 346/52, Shannon Burns

EDQUIST, Harriet, Michael O’Connell: The Lost Modernist, Melbourne Books, 343/32, Morag Fraser

EGGLETON, Tony, A Short Introduction to Climate Change, CUP, 346/31, Don Aitkin

EKINS, Ashley with Ian McNeill, Fighting to the Finish: The Australian Army and the Vietnam War 1968–1975, Allen & Unwin, 344/71, Greg Lockhart

ELLIOTT, Will, Nightfall, HarperCollins, 347/72, Grace Nye

ELSAESSER, Thomas, The Persistence of Hollywood, Routledge, 341/43, Adrian Danks

EMERY, Brook, Collusion, John Leonard Press, 347/49, Anthony Lynch

ESPESETH, Amy, Sufficient Grace, Scribe, 344/65, Francesca Sasnaitis

FARRELL, Michael, Open Sesame, Giramondo, 345/69, Peter Kenneally

FEATHERSTONE, Lisa, Let’s Talk About Sex: Histories of Sexuality in Australia from Federation to the Pill, Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 342/52, Shirleene Robinson

FERGUSON, Adele, Gina Rinehart: The Untold Story of the Richest Person in Australian History, Pan Macmillan, 346/20, Jan McGuinness

FINKEL, Elizabeth (ed.), The Best Australian Science Writing 2012, NewSouth, 347/43, Robyn Williams

FISH, Alan (edited by Philip Salom), The Keeper of Fish, Puncher & Wattmann, 341/65, Cassandra Atherton

FITCH, Toby, Rawshock, Puncher & Wattmann, 345/67, Peter Kenneally

FITZPATRICK, Peter, The Two Frank Thrings, Monash University Publishing, 345/10, Ian Britain

FLYNN, Chris, A Tiger in Eden, Text, 339/32, Adam Rivett

FORD, Andrew, Try Whistling This: Writings About Music, Black Inc., 344/59, Gillian Wills

FORD, Mark (ed.), London: A History in Verse, Harvard, 347/46, Geoffrey Lehmann

FORD, Richard, Canada, Bloomsbury, 343/45, James Ley

FORSHAW, Barry, British Crime Film: Subverting the Social Order, Palgrave Macmillan, 347/54, Michael Fleming

FORSTER, Deborah, The Meaning of Grace, Vintage, 341/28, Jay Daniel Thompson

FOSTER, David, Man of Letters: Dog Rock 3, Puncher & Wattmann, 347/19, Susan Lever

FREEMAN, John (ed.), Granta 117: Horror, Granta, 339/63, Mieke Chew

FRENCH, Philip, I Found It at the Movies: Reflections of a Cinephile, Carcanet Press, 338/41, Brian McFarlane

FULLER, John, Who is Ozymandias? And Other Puzzles in Poetry, Allen & Unwin, 339/57, Chris Wallace-Crabbe

GIGANTE, Denise, The Keats Brothers: The Life of John and George, Harvard, 340/48, William Christie

GILBEY, David (ed.), fourW twenty-two, fourWpress, 344/76, Jay Daniel Thompson

GLEESON, Libby, Red, Allen & Unwin, 342/62, Ruth Starke

GLEESON, Libby and Freya Blackwood, Look, A BOOK!, Little Hare, 339/66, Joy Lawn

GOAD, Philip and Julie Willis (eds), The Encyclopedia of Australian Architecture, CUP, 343/20, Gerard Vaughan

GOODFELLOW, Geoff, Grace Goodfellow and Randy Larcombe, Waltzing with Jack Dancer: A Slow Dance with Cancer, Wakefield Press, 338/55, Felicity Plunkett

GOTT, Ted (ed.), Napoleon: Revolution to Empire, National Gallery of Victoria, 343/22, Robert Aldrich

GOULD, Alan, The Seaglass Spiral, Finlay Lloyd Publishers, 347/21, Jane Sullivan

GRAHAM, Bob, A Bus Called Heaven, Walker Books, 339/66, Joy Lawn

GRANFIELD, Matt, HipsterMattic, Allen & Unwin, 338/57, Alex O’Brien

GRANT, Pat, Blue, Giramondo/Top Shelf, 340/45, Ronnie Scott

GRAY, Anne, Sydney Long: The Spirit of the Land, National Gallery of Victoria, 347/48, Steven Miller

GRAY, Robert, Cumulus: Collected Poems, John Leonard Press, 346/62, Martin Duwell

GREENWOOD, Kerry, Cooking the Books, Allen & Unwin, 339/44, Francesca Sasnaitis

GROOM, Linda, A Steady Hand: Governor Hunter & His First Fleet Sketchbook, NLA, 346/50, Alisa Bunbury

GROSSI, Guy, Recipes from My Mother’s Kitchen, Lantern, 341/53, Christopher Menz

HADFIELD, Andrew, Edmund Spenser: A Life, OUP, 346/55, Lisa Gorton

HAESE, Richard, Permanent Revolution: Mike Brown and the Australian Avant-Garde 1953–97, Miegunyah, 339/39, Peter Hill

HAIGH, Gideon, On Warne, Hamish Hamilton, 347/41, Brian Matthews

HAIGH, Gideon, The Office: A Hardworking History, Miegunyah, 343/63, Jane Goodall

HARPER, Graeme (ed.), Inside Creative Writing: Interviews with Contemporary Writers, Palgrave Macmillan, 340/66, Ruth Starke

HARRIS, Christine and Ann James, It’s a Miroocool!, Little Hare Books, 344/74, Stephanie Owen Reeder

HARROWER, Elizabeth, The Watch Tower, Text, 345/12, Kerryn Goldsworthy

HARTNETT, Sonya, The Children of the King, Viking, 342/62, Ruth Starke

HARTNETT, Sonya, Wolf Creek (Australian Screen Classics), Currency Press, 338/19, Adam Rivett

HASTINGS, Max, All Hell Let Loose: The World at War 1939–1945, HarperCollins, 338/21, Robin Prior

HAWKE, Rosanne, The Messenger Bird, UQP, 343/78, Pam Macintyre

HEATH, Sally (ed.), Meanjin, Vol. 70, No. 4, MUP, 338/23, William Heyward

HEAZLEWOOD, Justin, The Bedroom Philosopher Diaries, A Small Press, 343/43, Milly Main

HENRY, Kristin, All the Way Home, UWAP, 343/77, Peter Kenneally

HERD, Nick, Networking: Commercial Television in Australia, Currency House, 343/61, Philip Bell

HEWETT, Dorothy, Wild Card: An Autobiography 1923–1958, UWAP, 344/12, Bernadette Brennan

HIL, Richard, Whackademia: An Insider’s Account of the Troubled University, NewSouth, 344/70, Suzie Gibson

HILL, Barry, Naked Clay: Drawing from Lucian Freud, Shearsman Books, 343/29, Kate Middleton

HILL, David and Fifi Colston, The Red Poppy, Scholastic, 339/66, Joy Lawn

HOCKING, Jenny, Gough Whitlam: His Time: The Biography, Volume II, Miegunyah, 346/15, Neal Blewett

HOLLAND, Patrick, Riding the Trains in Japan: Travels in the Sacred and Supermodern East, Transit Lounge, 339/65, William Heyward

HOLLAND, Patrick, The Darkest Little Room, Transit Lounge, 347/72, Jay Daniel Thompson

HOOPER, Chloe, The Engagement, Hamish Hamilton, 345/21, Kate McFadyen

HORNE, Julia and Geoffrey Sherington, Sydney: The Making of a Public University, Miegunyah, 347/63, Richard Broinowski

HUGHES, John, The Remnants, UWAP, 343/42, Ed Wright

HUNT, Julie, The Coat, Allen & Unwin, 344/74, Stephanie Owen Reeder

JACKSON, Philip W., What is Education?, University of Chicago Press, 342/15, Simon Marginson

JACOBSON, Lisa, The Sunlit Zone, 5 Islands Press, 343/26, Peter Kenneally

JAMES, Clive, A Point of View, Picador, 345/26, Andy Lloyd James

JEFFREY, Belinda, One Long Thread, UQP, 342/63, Laura Elvery

JOHNSON, Susan, My Hundred Lovers, Allen & Unwin, 342/23, Wendy Were

JORDAN, Mary Ellen and Andrew Weldon, Lazy Daisy, Busy Lizzie, Allen & Unwin, 339/66, Joy Lawn

JORDAN, Toni, Nine Days, Text, 344/24, Donata Carrazza

JUDT, Tony with Timothy Snyder, Thinking the Twentieth Century, William Heinemann, 342/11, Neal Blewett

KARUNATILAKA, Shehan, Chinaman: The Legend of Pradeep Mathew, Vintage, 345/60, Ed Wright

KEANE, Michael, Views from the Balcony: A Biography of Catherine Duncan, Macmillan Art Publishing, 338/59, Desley Deacon

KEATING, P.J., After Words: The Post-Prime Ministerial Speeches, Allen & Unwin, 338/9, Neal Blewett

KEILSON, Hans, There Stands My House: A Memoir, Scribe, 340/65, William Heyward

KELEN, S.K., Island Earth: New and Selected Poems, Brandl & Schlesinger, 341/66, Anthony Lynch

KENEALLY, Tom, The Daughters of Mars, Vintage, 342/22, Phil Brown

KENNEDY, Cate, Like a House on Fire, Scribe, 346/29, Anthony Lynch

KESSLER-HARRIS, Alice, A Difficult Woman: The Challenging Life and Times of Lillian Hellman, Bloomsbury, 343/73, Desley Deacon

KING, Stephen Michael, A Bear and a Tree, Viking, 339/66, Joy Lawn

KNIGHT, Eric, Reframe: How to Solve the World’s Trickiest Problems, Black Inc., 344/62, Alex O’Brien

KNOX, Malcolm, Bradman’s War: How the 1948 Invincibles Turned the Cricket Pitch into a Battlefield, Viking, 347/42, Bernard Whimpress

KOCH, Christopher, Lost Voices, Fourth Estate, 347/15, Don Anderson

KRAMER, Leonie, Broomstick: Personal Reflections of Leonie Kramer, Australian Scholarly Publishing, 346/23, Brigitta Olubas

KRIEN, Anna, Us and Them: On the Importance of Animals (Quarterly Essay 45), Black Inc., 340/63, Alex O’Brien

KWAYMULLINA, Ambelin, The Interrogation of Ashala Wolf, Walker Books, 344/75, Bec Kavanagh

LAMEY, Andy, Frontier Justice: The Global Refugee Crisis and What to Do about It, UQP, 340/27, Peter Mares

LANAGAN, Margo, Sea Hearts, Allen & Unwin, 341/57, Maya Linden

LANGDON, Jo, Snowline, Whitmore Press, 344/76, Peter Kenneally

LANZMANN, Claude, The Patagonian Hare: A Memoir, Atlantic Books, 345/70, Colin Nettelbeck

LAUGESEN, Amanda, ‘Boredom is the Enemy’: The Intellectual and Imaginative Lives of Australian Soldiers, Ashgate Publishing, 345/61, Craig Wilcox

LAWRENCE, Anthony, The Welfare of My Enemy, Puncher & Wattmann, 340/56, Martin Duwell

LAWSON, Sylvia, Demanding the Impossible: Seven Essays on Resistance, MUP, 341/51, Judith Armstrong

LEA, Bronwyn (ed.), Australian Poetry Journal: Volume 2.1, Technology, Australian Poetry, 345/65, Rose Lucas

LEONARD, John (ed.), Young Poets: An Australian Anthology, John Leonard Press, 340/53, Maria Takolander

LEWIS, Darrell, A Wild History: Life and Death on the Victoria River Frontier, Monash University Publishing, 344/47, John Rickard

LEWIS, Steve and Chris Uhlmann, The Marmalade Files, Fourth Estate, 346/64, Ben Eltham

LEYS, Simon, The Hall of Uselessness: Collected Essays, Black Inc., 338/19, Nick Hordern

LILLEY, Kate, Ladylike, UWAP, 342/61, Rose Lucas

LINKLATER, Andrew, The Problem of Harm in World Politics: Theoretical Investigations, CUP, 342/47, N.A.J. Taylor

LOKUGÉ, Chandani, Softly, As I Leave You, Arcadia Publishing, 338/54, Gillian Dooley

LOVITT, Zane, The Midnight Promise, Text, 345/57, Sky Kirkham

LOWENSTEIN, Antony and Jeff Sparrow (eds), Left Turn: Political Essays for the New Left, MUP, 344/67, Ben Eltham

MACINNIS, Peter, Curious Minds: The Discoveries of Australian Naturalists, NLA, 347/61, Peter Menkhorst

MACLEOD, Doug, The Shiny Guys, Penguin, 343/78, Bec Kavanagh

MCCOOEY, David, Outside, Salt Publishing, 339/60, Philip Harvey

MCFARLANE, Jenny, Concerning the Spiritual: The Influence of the Theosophical Society on Australian Artists 1890–1934, Australian Scholarly Publishing, 343/60, Steven Miller

MCKENZIE, Janet with Irene Barberis and Christopher Heathcote, Contemporary Australian Drawing #1, Palgrave Macmillan, 343/38, Justin Clemens

MCKEW, Maxine, Tales from the Political Trenches, MUP, 347/14, Jane Goodall

MCKIMMIE, Chris, Alex and the Watermelon Boat, Allen & Unwin, 344/74, Stephanie Owen Reeder

MCKINLAY, Meg, Ten Tiny Things, Fremantle Press, 344/74, Stephanie Owen Reeder

MCKNIGHT, David, Rupert Murdoch: An Investigation of Political Power, Allen & Unwin, 339/12, Joel Deane

MCMASTER, Rhyll, Late Night Shopping, Brandl & Schlesinger, 341/64, Bronwyn Lea

MCNEVIN, Anne, Contesting Citizenship: Irregular Migrants and New Frontiers of the Political, Columbia University Press, 340/27, Peter Mares

MCPHEE, Hilary with Ann Standish (eds), Memoirs of a Young Bastard: The Diaries of Tim Burstall 1953 to December 1954, Miegunyah, 340/20, John Thompson

MCPHEE, Peter, Robespierre: A Revolutionary Life, Yale, 341/56, Philip Dwyer

MANN, Michael E., The Hockey Stick and the Climate Wars: Dispatches from the Front Lines, Columbia University Press, 343/30, David Karoly

MANTEL, Hilary, Bring Up the Bodies, Fourth Estate, 342/19, Peter Rose

MARR, David, Panic, Black Inc., 338/13, Dennis Altman

MARR, Shirley, Preloved, Black Dog Books, 343/78, Pam Macintyre

MARSHALL, Debi, The House of Hancock: The Rise and Rise of Gina Rinehart, William Heinemann, 346/20, Jan McGuinness

MARTIN, Sarah, Davis McCaughey: A Life, UNSW Press, 347/28, Chris Wallace-Crabbe

MATTHEWS, Amy T., End of the Night Girl, Wakefield Press, 343/46, Anna Heyward

MAWER, Granville Allen, Canberry Tales: An Informal History, Arcadia Publishing, 347/69, John Thompson

MAYNARD, John, The Aboriginal Soccer Tribe: A History of Aboriginal Involvement with the World Game, Magabala Books, 342/51, Bernard Whimpress

MEGALOGENIS, George, The Australian Moment: How We Were Made for These Times, Hamish Hamilton, 340/29, Matthew Lamb

MEIN SMITH, Philippa, A Concise History of New Zealand, CUP, 338/61, Rachel Buchanan

MENZ, Christopher (ed.), Visions Past and Present: Celebrating 40 Years, The Ian Potter Museum of Art, 343/58, Jane Clark

MIDALIA, Susan, An Unknown Sky and Other Stories, UWAP, 347/67, Rob Horne

MILLARD, Glenda and Patricia Mullins, Lightening Jack, Scholastic, 339/66, Joy Lawn

MILLER, Steven, Dogs in Australian Art: A New History in Antipodean Creativity, Wakefield Press, 343/40, Stella Gray

MILLS, Jane, Jedda, Currency Press, 345/47, Jake Wilson

MILLS, Jennifer, The Rest is Weight, UQP, 346/67, William Heyward

MIMMOCCHI, Denise, Australian Symbolism: The Art of Dreams, Art Gallery of New South Wales, 344/60, Jane Clark

MODJESKA, Drusilla, The Mountain, Vintage, 341/25, Gillian Dooley

MOLONEY, James, The Tower Mill, UQP, 347/62, Sky Kirkham

MOORE, Nicole, The Censor’s Library: Uncovering the Lost History of Australia’s Banned Books, UQP, 341/21, Geoffrey Cains

MORGAN, Christopher, Currawalli Street, Allen & Unwin, 338/42, Carol Middleton

MORRISON, Fiona (ed.), Selected Prose of Dorothy Hewett, UWAP, 338/47, Bruce Bennett

MORTON, Peter, Lusting for London: Australian Expatriate Writers at the Hub of Empire, 1870–1950, Palgrave Macmillan, 342/43, Lucy Sussex

MUKHERJEE, Siddhartha, The Emperor of All Maladies: A Biography of Cancer, Fourth Estate, 338/55, Felicity Plunkett

MURAKAMI, Haruki (trans. Jay Rubin and Phillip Gabriel), 1Q84, Harvill Secker, 339/30, Alison Broinowski

MURNANE, Gerald, A History of Books, Giramondo, 342/20, Adam Rivett

MURRAY, Les (ed.), The Quadrant Book of Poetry, Quadrant Books, 342/55, Anthony Lynch

MURRAY, Ruby J., Running Dogs, Scribe, 341/26, Christine Piper

NEVILLE, Richard, Mr JW Lewin: Painter and Naturalist, NewSouth, 343/56, John Thompson

NEWTON-JOHN, Pierz, Fault Lines, Spineless Wonders, 344/49, Milly Main

NIALL, Brenda, True North: The True Story of Mark and Elizabeth Durack, Text, 340/21, Susan Sheridan

NOUEIHED, Lin and Alex Warren, The Battle for the Arab Spring: Revolution, Counter-Revolution and the Making of a New Era, Yale, 344/45, Peter Rodgers

NOWRA, Louis, Into That Forest, Allen & Unwin, 347/71, Laura Elvery

O’REILLY, P.A., The Fine Colour of Rust, Blue Door, 340/67, Alice Robinson

OPPY, Graham and N.N. Trakakis (eds), The Antipodean Philosopher, Volume 2: Interviews with Australian and New Zealand Philosophers, Lexington Books, 347/65, Craig Taylor

ORD, Mandy, Sensitive Creatures, Allen & Unwin, 339/67, Ronnie Scott

ORR, Stephen, Dissonance: A Novel, Wakefield Press, 344/25, Anthony Lynch

PARGETER, Alison, Libya: The Rise and Fall of Qaddafi, Yale, 344/45, Peter Rodgers

PARKER, Danny and Matt Ottley, Tree: A Little Story about Big Things, Little Hare, 347/70, Joy Lawn

PARRETT, Favel, Past the Shallows, Hachette Australia, 343/68, Amy Baillieu

PARRY, Bronwyn, Dead Heat, Hachette Australia, 341/44, Joy Lawn

PARRY, Glyn, The Arch-Conjuror of England: John Dee, Yale, 342/54, Wilfrid Prest

PAYNTER, Jennifer, Mary Bennet, Viking, 342/59, Carol Middleton

PEEL, Mark and Christina Twomey, A History of Australia, Palgrave Macmillan, 340/15, Frank Bongiorno

PIERSE, Simon, Australian Art and Artists in London, 1950–1965: An Antipodean Summer, Ashgate Publishing, 343/35, Sarah Scott

PRAKASH, Uday, The Walls of Delhi, UWAP, 344/64, Mridula Chakraborty

PRESTON, Edwina, The Inheritance of Ivorie Hammer, UQP, 347/52, Gillian Dooley

PRIDEAUX, Sue, Strindberg: A Life, Yale, 347/26, Kári Gíslason

RASCAROLI, Laura and John David Rhodes (eds), Antonioni: Centenary Essays, Palgrave Macmillan/British Film Institute, 342/34, Hamish Ford

REED, Christopher, Art and Homosexuality: A History of Ideas, OUP, 338/31, Robert Aldrich

REES, Peter, Desert Boys: Australians at War from Beersheba to Tobruk and El Alamein, Allen & Unwin, 340/61, Craig Wilcox

RENDLE- SHORT, Francesca, Bite Your Tongue, Spinifex Press, 338/50, Donata Carrazza

RELPH, Andrew, Not Drowning, Reading, Fremantle Press, 339/44, Gillian Dooley

REYNOLDS, Henry, A History of Tasmania, CUP, 338/23, John Hirst

RICHELL, Hannah, Secrets of the Tides, Hachette Australia, 344/49, Angela E. Andrewes

RIDDLE, Tohby, Unforgotten, Allen & Unwin, 347/70, Joy Lawn

RIFFENBURGH, Beau, Aurora: Douglas Mawson and the Australasian Antarctic Expedition 1911–14, Erskine Press, 342/49, Alasdair McGregor

ROBB, Peter, Lives, Black Inc., 342/9, Owen Richardson

ROBERTSON, Fiona, The Perfect Present, Viking, 339/66, Joy Lawn

ROBERTSON, Rachel, Reaching One Thousand: A Story of Love, Motherhood and Autism, Black Inc., 339/59, Carmel Bird

ROE, Nicholas, John Keats: A New Life, Yale, 347/23, William Christie

ROGERS, Benedict, Burma: A Nation at the Crossroads, Rider Books, 345/27, Nick Hordern

ROLLO, Joe, Beautiful Ugly: The Architectural Photography of John Gollings, Thames & Hudson, 343/52, Isobel Crombie

ROSENTHAL, Mark (ed.), William Kentridge: Five Themes, Yale, 341/37, Lisa Gorton

ROSS, John (ed.), The Penguin Book of Australian Bush Writing, Viking, 339/43, Susan K. Martin

ROTHENBERG, David, Survival of the Beautiful: Art, Science, and Evolution, Bloomsbury Press, 339/62, Ian Gibbins

ROWE, Josephine, Tarcutta Wake, UQP, 346/67, William Heyward

ROWLING, J.K., The Casual Vacancy, Little, Brown, 347/18, James Ley

ROXBURGH, Angus, The Strongman: Vladimir Putin and the Struggle for Russia, I.B. Tauris, 340/50, Geoff Winestock

RYAN, Alan, The Making of Modern Liberalism, Princeton, 346/58, Glyn Davis

RYAN, Christian (ed.), Australia: Story of a Cricket Country, Hardie Grant Books, 341/61, Bernard Whimpress

RYAN, Lyndall, Tasmanian Aborigines: A History Since 1803, Allen & Unwin, 343/49, Greg Lehman

SALA, Michael, The Last Thread, Affirm Press, 338/51, Kate Holden

SANTICH, Barbara, Bold Palates: Australia’s Gastronomic Heritage, Wakefield Press, 344/58, Sally Burton

SCHWARTZ, Sanford (ed.), The Age of Movies: Selected Writings of Pauline Kael, The Library of America, 339/37, Philippa Hawker

SCOTT, Kate and Lorelei Vashti (eds), Luminous: Celebrating 50 Years of the Australian Ballet, The Australian Ballet, 342/28, Jordan Beth Vincent

SCOTT, Kim, Iris Woods and the Wirlomin Noongar Language and Stories Project, Mamang, UWAP, 338/63, Christine Nicholls

SCOTT, Kim, Lomas Roberts and the Wirlomin Noongar Language and Stories Project, Noongar Mambara Bakitj, UWAP, 338/63, Christine Nicholls

SCOURFIELD, Stephen, Unaccountable Hours: Three Novellas, UWAP, 340/44, Elena Gomez

SHARKEY, Michael, Another Fine Morning in Paradise, 5 Islands Press, 343/76, Paul Hetherington

SHARKEY, Michael, Apollo in George Street: The Life of David McKee Wright, Puncher & Wattmann, 345/51, Geoff Page

SIEVWRIGHT, Ashley, Walter, Clouds of Magellan, 347/72, Crusader Hillis

SILVEY, Craig, The Amber Amulet, Allen & Unwin, 346/68, Sophie Splatt

SIMMONS, Sylvie, I’m Your Man: The Life of Leonard Cohen, Jonathan Cape, 347/39, David McCooey

SIMONE, Patrizia with Caroline Pizzey, My Umbrian Kitchen, Lantern, 347/46, Christopher Menz

SMITH, Sydney, The Lost Woman, Text, 343/66, Carmel Bird

SMITH, Vivian, Here, There and Elsewhere, Giramondo, 342/60, Martin Duwell

SMITHERS, Annie, Annie’s Garden to Table: A Garden Diary Featuring 100 Seasonal Recipes, Lantern, 341/53, Christopher Menz

SPANIER, Sandra and Robert W. Trogdon (eds.), The Letters of Ernest Hemingway: 1907–1922, CUP, 338/34, James McNamara

SPITZ, Bob, Dearie: The Remarkable Life of Julia Child, Alfred A. Knopf, 347/55, Sally Burton

STARCK, Nigel, Proud Australian Boy: A Biography of Russell Braddon, Australian Scholarly Publishing, 338/58, John Ellison Davies

STEDMAN, M.L., The Light Between Oceans, Vintage, 340/67, Jeremy Fisher

STEELE, Peter, Braiding the Voices: Essays in Poetry, John Leonard Press, 345/23, Paul Kane

STEWART, Briony, The Red Wheelbarrow, UQP, 344/74, Stephanie Owen Reeder

ST JOHN MOORE, Felicity, Vassilieff and his Art, Macmillan Art Books, 347/52, Robin Wallace-Crabbe

STOCKINGS, Craig (ed.), Anzac’s Dirty Dozen: 12 Myths of Australian Military History, NewSouth, 341/58, Robin Prior

STOW, Randolph, The Land’s Meaning: New Selected Poems, Fremantle Press, 344/42, Dennis Haskell

SUTHERLAND, John, Lives of the Novelists: A History of Fiction in 287 Lives, Profile Books, 340/17, James Ley

SWINGLER, Susan, The House of Fiction: Leonard, Susan and Elizabeth Jolley, Fremantle Press, 341/18, Francesca Rendle-Short

SWORD, Helen, Stylish Academic Writing, Harvard University Press, 345/63, Colin Steele

TAYLOR, Tony, Fishing the River of Time, Text, 340/26, Carol Middleton

THOMAS, Daniel (ed.), Bea Maddock: Catalogue Raissoné Volume I 1951–1983, Queen Victoria Museum and Art Gallery, 345/44, Ann Stephen

THOMPSON, Craig, Habibi, Faber, 338/64, Oslo Davis

THOMSON, Richard, Frances Fowle, and Rodolphe Rapetti, Van Gogh to Kandinsky: Symbolist Landscape in Europe 1880–1910, Mercatorfonds, 344/60, Jane Clark

TIDEY, John, Class Act: A Life of Creighton Burns, Australian Scholarly Publishing, 341/20, Nick Hordern

TIFFANY, Carrie, Mateship with Birds, Picador, 338/27, Bronwyn Lea

TOMALIN, Claire, Dickens: A Life, Viking, 339/16, Evelyn Juers

TOUCHELL, Dianne, Creepy & Maud, Fremantle Press, 345/72, Maya Linden

TRANTER, John (ed.), The Best Australian Poems 2011, Black Inc., 338/38, Kate Middleton

TRANTER, Kirsten, A Common Loss, Fourth Estate, 338/26, Ruth Starke

TRAVERS, Richard, The Tennis Courts of Lyon: Les Jeux de Paume de Lyon, Oryx Publishing, 341/63, Colin Nettelbeck

TULBA, Majok, Beneath the Darkening Sky, Hamish Hamilton, 344/26, Alison Broinowski

TWOHIG, Peter, The Cartographer, Fourth Estate, 340/67, Lucas Smith

ÜLGEZER, Alice Melike, The Memory of Salt, Giramondo, 345/56, Claudia Hyles

USHER, Rod, Poor Man’s Wealth, Fourth Estate, 338/52, Phil Brown

VAN KLINKEN, Helene, Making Them Indonesians: Child Transfers Out of East Timor, Monash University Publishing, 340/64, Jill Jolliffe

WAITE MORGAN, James, The Premier and the Pastoralist: William Morgan and Peter Waite, Wakefield Press, 338/60, Bernard Whimpress

WAKEFIELD, Vikki, Friday Brown, Text, 344/74, Sophie Splatt

WALKER, Anna, Peggy, Scholastic, 347/70, Joy Lawn

WALSH, Jennifer, The Tunnels of Tarcoola, Allen & Unwin, 342/62, Ruth Starke

WARK, McKenzie, The Beach Beneath the Street: The Everyday Life and Glorious Times of the Situationist International, Verso, 343/71, Ben Juers

WATERS, Christopher, Australia and Appeasement: Imperial Foreign Policy and the Origins of World War II, I.B. Tauris, 339/61, Stuart Macintyre

WATSON, Tom and Martin Hickman, Dial M for Murdoch: News Corporation and the Corruption of Britain, Allen Lane, 343/11, Anne Chisholm

WEINBERGER, Eliot, Wildlife, Giramondo, 342/57, William Heyward

WELLS, Pera (ed.), Ormond Papers Volume XXVIII, 2011, Ormond College, 341/22, Cassandra Atherton

WHITE, Anthony, Lucio Fontana: Between Utopia and Kitsch, MIT Press, 343/54, Peter Hill

WHITE, Patrick, The Hanging Garden, Vintage, 340/12, Peter Conrad

WHITE, Hugh, The China Choice: Why America Should Share Power, Black Inc., 346/32, Nick Bisley

WILD, Margaret, Tanglewood, Omnibus Books, 344/74, Stephanie Owen Reeder

WILLAN, Anne, Mark Cherniavsky, and Kyri Claflin, The Cookbook Library: Four Centuries of the Cooks, Writers, and Recipes that Made the Modern Cookbook, University of California Press, 345/50, Christopher Menz

WILLIAMS, Susan, Who Killed Hammarskjöld?: The UN, The Cold War and White Supremacy in Africa, Columbia University Press, 342/46, Roland Burke

WOOLFE, Sue, The Oldest Song in the World, Fourth Estate, 343/47, Jane Sullivan

WOOLLACOTT, Angela, Race and the Modern Exotic: Three ‘Australian’ Women on Global Display, Monash University Publishing, 340/59, John Rickard

WRIGHT, Fiona, Knuckled, Giramondo, 338/62, Rose Lucas

YULE, Peter, William Lawrence Baillieu: Founder of Australia’s Greatest Business Empire, Hardie Grant Books, 341/60, John Arnold

Features Index 2012

ABR ELIZABETH JOLLEY SHORT STORY PRIZE

COX, Jack, ‘Gorgeous Perambulator’, 344/51

ELLIOT, Ngiare, ‘Tended by Foxes’, 344/28

HURLEY, Sue, ‘Patterns in Nature’, 344/17

 

BOOKS OF THE YEAR

ALTMAN, Dennis, 347/31

ANDERSON, Don, 347/31

BEVERIDGE, Judith, 347/31

BIRCH, Tony, 347/31

GOLDSMITH, Andrea, 347/31

GOLDSWORTHY, Kerryn, 347/32

GORTON, Lisa, 347/32

KANE, Paul, 347/32

KINSELLA, John, 347/34

LEHMANN, Geoffrey, 347/34

LEY, James, 347/34

MCCAUGHEY, Patrick, 347/35

MCCOOEY, David, 347/35

MCFARLANE, Brian, 347/35

MILLER, Alex, 347/36

NIALL, Brenda, 347/36

STOTHARD, Peter, 347/36

SULLIVAN, Jane, 347/37

TRANTER, John, 347/37

WALLACE-CRABBE, Chris, 347/37

 

BOOKS OF THE YEAR: CHILDREN AND YOUNG ADULTS

KAVANAGH, Bec, 347/38

LAWN, Joy, 347/38

MACINTYRE, Pam, 347/38

OWEN REEDER, Stephanie, 347/38

SHUTTLEWORTH, Mike, 347/38

STARKE, Ruth, 347/38

 

CALIBRE PRIZE

RUBINSTEIN, Matt, ‘Body and Soul: Copyright Law and Enforcement in the Age of the Electronic Book’, 344/33

 

CARTOONS

Juers, Ben. 343/31, 343/57, 344/15, 344/48, 345/55, 346/13

 

COMMENTARY

ALLINGTON, Patrick, ‘All Bets are Off’, 342/18

CARTER, David, ‘Patrick White to the Rescue’, 347/22

COLLIS, David, ‘Who’s Afraid of the “E” Word?: Building Equity Among Australian Schools’, 346/9

CRAVEN, Peter, ‘A Hell of a Calling Card: Patrick White’s Jackeroo Epic is Finally Reissued’, 344/9

DESSAIX, Robert, ‘Pushing Against the Dark: Writing about the Hidden Self’, 340/32

FRASER, Morag, ‘If It’s Broke, Don’t Fix It!: Fear and Loathing in American Politics’, 338/14

GORTON, Lisa, ‘Shadow Vision: The Protean World of William Kentridge’, 341/37

GUEST, Stephanie, ‘Oz Lit in the Moot Court Room: Finding Australian Literature at the University of Melbourne’, 338/36

HARTNETT, Sonya, ‘“Dark Waves of Feeling”: Brotherly Themes in Martin Boyd’s A Difficult Young Man’, 339/33

HYLES, Claudia, ‘A Big Tamasha: Free Speech and Sectarian Tensions at the Jaipur Festival’, 339/9

KILNER, Kerry, ‘AustLit Coming Your Way’, 346/57

LINDSAY, Jennifer, ‘Goenawan Mohamad’, 345/29

MCCAUGHEY, Patrick, ‘Worldly Riches at the Barnes: From Musty Merion to a New Home in Philadelphia’, 343/16

MARR, David, ‘“So Much of Our Life in It”: Arrogant Adelaide and the Theatre of Patrick White’, 341/12

NETTELBECK, Colin, ‘Now They’ve Gone’, 346/36

 

FILM

FUHRMANN, Andrew, Wild Surmise, 347/50

HAWKER, Philippa, Cosmopolis, 344/57

HAWKER, Philippa, Trishna, 342/37

MCFARLANE, Brian, The Deep Blue Sea, 341/45

MCFARLANE, Brian, Wuthering Heights, 345/49

MORLEY, Michael, Coriolanus, 340/52

WILSON, Jake, Carnage, 339/36

 

LANGUAGE

OGILVIE, Sarah, ‘“A New Garment Throughout”: The Future of Dictionaries in the Digital Age’, 338/44

OGILVIE, Sarah, ‘Citizen Lexicography: Creating a “World Zoo” in Canberra’, 339/52

OGILVIE, Sarah, ‘Landmines in Lexicography’, 341/32

OGILVIE, Sarah, ‘Parasitic Dictionaries and Spam Books’, 340/58

OGILVIE, Sarah, ‘Unsung Hero of Australian Lexicography’, 342/38

 

ONLINE EDITION EXTRAS

FITZGERALD, ‘A Body of Water’, 9 August 2012

 

OPEN PAGE

BIRCH, Tony, 341/68

CONRAD, Peter, 339/68

MEARS, Gillian, 343/80

NIALL, Brenda, 340/68

TRANTER, John, 342/64

 

PETER PORTER POETRY PRIZE: THE SHORTLISTED POEMS

ELVEY, Anne, ‘Bayside Suburban’, 339/24

FARRELL, Michael, ‘Beautiful Mother’, 339/25

FITCH, Toby, ‘Oscillations’, 339/28

ROBINSON, Gareth, ‘Provenance’, 339/23

WELDON, Annamaria, ‘After Devotion’, 339/26

 

POEMS

BEVERIDGE, Judith, ‘The Blind Soothsayer’, 342/35

EDGAR, Stephen, ‘Grand Canyon’, 343/59

FARRELL, Michael, ‘The Grandfather’, 344/44

GORTON, Lisa, ‘Night Guard, The Futures Museum: after the ACMI Star Voyager Exhibition’, 340/41

KANE, Paul, ‘Co. Kerry’, 344/56

KINSELLA, John, ‘Brother’, 347/64

KINSELLA, John, ‘Emily Poems’, 341/36

LADD, Mike, ‘Tide: My Father’s Dementia’, 346/51

MAIDEN, Jennifer, ‘Deep River’, 338/30

MAIDEN, Jennifer, ‘Diary Poem: Uses of Liquid Nitrogen’, 345/59

MIDDLETON, Kate, ‘After Reading Henry James’s The Awkward Age’ 339/53

MIDDLETON, Kate, ‘Balcony 2: after Brett Whiteley’, 345/71

MIDDLETON, Kate, ‘Shearing the Rams’, 343/55

ROBINSON, Gareth, ‘Convocation’, 346/66

ROSE, Peter, ‘Dark, Not Day’, 345/53

ROSE, Peter, ‘Grade’, 338/39

STEELE, Peter, ‘Maze’, 342/45

TAKOLANDER, Maria, ‘Golden Sigi: An Advertisement’, 342/39

TAYLOR, Andrew, ‘Lament for the Makars’, 343/44

WALLACE-CRABBE, Chris, ‘One House’, 341/33

 

STORIES

BRYSON, John, ‘Kindly Death’, 347/57

TAKOLANDER, Maria, ‘Three Sisters’, 339/45

 

TELEVISION

HARKINS-CROSS, Rebecca, Redfern Now, 347/51

 

THEATRE

FUHRMANN, Andrew, On the Misconception of Oedipus, 345/46

FUHRMANN, Andrew, The Histrionic, 341/40

RICKARD, John, Summer of the Seventeenth Doll, 339/21

 

TRIBUTE

GOODALL, Jane, ‘Remembering Robert Hughes (1938–2012)’, 344/23

 Opera Australia returns to Melbourne for a short season of three operas – one German, two Italian, all notable for their gory finales.

The season opened on 14 November with Moffatt Oxenbould’s production of Puccini’s Madama Butterfly, which has been entertaining us since 1998. Done well, Puccini’s ‘orientalist’ masterwork is riveting. The orchestration alone is worth the price of the ticket. Done badly, it can be interminable. The première – at La Scala, in 1904 – was a famous fiasco, a rare failure for the wizard of Italian opera.

Happily, this was an outstanding performance, one that got better and better all night, culminating in scenes of great drama and pathos. Conductor Giovanni Reggioli drew sure, subtle sounds from Orchestra Victoria. Oxenbould’s stately but dramatic conception holds up well. The courtly semaphore-like Japanese gestures are ubiquitous at first, but this settles down, allowing us to concentrate on the many dramas of fifteen-year-old Cio-Cio-San, perhaps the composer’s most poignant creation, along with Liù in Turandot. Barry Ryan, our Sharpless, the US Consul who must do Pinkerton’s dirty work, is outstanding. Young local James Egglestone plays the American cad. It is a light, high, accurate voice, and he hits all the notes, possibly waning slightly in the arduous love duet, but returning to the stage in outstanding voice an hour later (or should we say three years later?), when Pinkerton, accompanied by the American wife he always craved, acknowledges his many imperfections in the great trio and in his doleful aria ‘Addio, fiorito asil’.

James Egglestone and Hiromi Omura in Madama Butterfly
(photograph by Jeff Busby)

Sian Pendry, as Butterfly’s constant servant Suzuki, makes much of this noble rôle, and acts affectingly. But this is Hiromi Omura’s night, and this must be one of the finest Butterflys we have seen in years. Quite an actress, she remains in character all night, negotiating with ease the heroine’s marked transformation in outlook and temperament, from clueless virgin to undeceived suicide. The fantasy scene that opens Act Three could easily come unstuck in lesser hands, but here Omura is at her most actorly and compelling. 'Un bel di' could hardly be sung better. It is not a huge voice, but Omura copes with Puccini’s surges. Only the moving farewell to her infant son (a remarkably well-behaved little actor) is sung light-voiced, but it is no less affecting for that. Really, it is an awesome assumption of a truly great and truly difficult rôle.

Hiromi Omura as Cio-Cio-San in Madama Butterfly (photograph by Jeff Busby)

Nothing, it seems, happens in Scotland except cloudage and mariticide. Opera Australia’s new production of Lucia di Lammermoor (first presented in Sydney a few weeks ago) is remarkably sombre. A series of huge panels, covered in dark clouds, rise, fall, and tilt, providing a kind of bleak architecture for this latest rendition of Donizetti’s most famous opera.

John Doyle’s direction is sober, static, subdued. The sizeable chorus, deployed by Doyle, behaves like a frosty Presbyterian army. They enter in rows, interweave methodically, handle props as if their moral reputations depend upon it, and largely eschew expression. The wedding celebrations at Ravenswood Castle are quite joyless, despite the rousing music. D’immenso giubilo, indeed! When Lucia, having murdered her unwanted spouse, enlivens the occasion with her sanguinary fancies, the chorus remains rigid, emotionless, barely responding to Donizetti’s flitting freak. Still, the chorus sings forcefully and impressively throughout.

The vast stage is radically bare. This would suit Wagner, but I’m not sure about Donizetti’s busy, peopled opera. When two chairs are (theatrically) introduced in the third scene of Act One, it feels more portentous than the Second Coming. Later there is a long nuptial table on which the hysterical Lucia relives her gory consummation.

Lucia, of course, always dominates this opera, notwithstanding the excellence of Donizetti’s writing for male voices in this his forty-fifth opera (first performed in Naples in 1835). Famous as the long and elaborate mad scene is, Lucia has some superlative music in her earlier scenes, notably ‘Regnava nel silenzio’ and the jubilant cabaletta ‘Quando, rapita in estasi’ in the first scene, and a small, exquisite cavatina during her demoralised scene with Raimondo.

Emma Matthews as Lucia – girlish, sanguine, wide-eyed, a victim who smiles too much for her own good – is (understandably) cautious at first, and the high notes feel a little effortful, though always accurate. For the first act it is a winsome performance, not terribly original.

The mad scene is quite different. Here Matthews comes alive – comes alive to die. There is nothing glamorous about opera these days. Twitching and mad-eyed, the bare-footed Lucia shuffles on stage, her plain white nightgown covered in blood (with the usual modish menstrual additions). Here the orchestra plays every bit as well as it did during Butterfly – which augurs well for next year’s Ring Cycle. The addition of a glass harmonica-like electronic keyboard (the harmonica was Donizetti’s original choice, but Benjamin Franklin’s invention) during the mad scene is inspired. It is such a weird, luring, other-wordly sound – perfect for this long, abject, infinitely melodious scene. Matthews – eschewing grandiose effects and shuffling round the stage like a demented murderess in Prime Suspect – takes it slowly and imaginatively. She responds brilliantly to the companionable flute. Rightly, she brings down the house with the cabaletta ‘Spargi d’amaro pianto’.

Emma Matthews in Lucia di Lammermoor (photograph by Jeff Busby)

The men are equally fine. The expressive-faced Giorgio Caoduro (Lucia’s venal brother Enrico) doesn’t waste any time and kicks off the night with a spirited aria. Aldo Di Toro, as Lucia’s hapless lover, Edgardo, is a conventional actor, but he sings his difficult music with great feeling, assurance and brio. If Opera Australia is ever going to give us another I Puritani, they need look no further than Matthews and Di Toro.

For some reason the director has chosen cut the Wolf’s Crag scene – a regrettable choice, since the music in this tempestuous contest between Enrico and Edgardo is lively and the available baritone and tenor would have savoured it. Why shorten an entertaining night at the theatre?

The youthful David Parkin, as Lucia’s chaplain Raimondo, brought impressive sympathy and accuracy to the rôle of Raimondo, Lucia’s often aghast chaplain.

(photograph by Jeff Busby)

In one of the many paradoxes of bel canto opera, Lucia’s mad scene doesn’t close the opera. It is Edgardo, on being told of Lucia’s mad descent, who ends it with two arias, during the second of which he manages to stab himself much more neatly than Lucy of Lammermoor could manage. As the curtain descended – or rather, as the big cloudy panels folded on the latest victim – our boisterous conductor, Guillaume Tourniare, lost control of his baton, which went sailing over the pit – a fitting flourish.

Unfortunately, New York and the Met call and I will miss Cheryl Barker (who sang so beautifully in the Sydney production of Korngold’s Die Tote Stadt in July) in Strauss’s coruscating Salome, which opens on 1 December.

Opera Australia is performing in the State Theatre at the Arts Centre Melbourne. Madama Butterfly runs until 14 December 2012 and Lucia di Lammermoor until 15 December 2012. Salome opens on 1 December and runs until 15 December 2012.