Will Waspe
This was to have been the year of Australia's great leap forward into art and culture, and no doubt the artistically inclined are much encouraged by the election of Mr Gough Whitlam who is known to appreciate opera not only when the seats are free but even when he has to stand.
Nonetheless, the advance is not being achieved without some hard knocks from Australia's (not very) creative artists. First the Sydney Opera House is finally to open without an Australian opera in the season because — during all those years the Opera House has taken to build — no Australian composer has been able to produce more than a oneacter which Edward Downes and Lord Harewood think worthy of production in anything grander than workshop conditions.
Now the opening of the Adelaide Festival Theatre,, scheduled for March, has been postponed as well. The opening attraction was to have been a great new ballet (concerning the moon) choreographed by Adelaide's very own Sir Bobby Helpmann. But that's off, too — because, after two years, the composer commissioned for the task, Richard Meale, has produced just four minutes of score!
Incidentally the Sydney Opera House will also open without Aida. This project, the Australian Opera's chairman says, has been abandoned for "technical, casting and economic reasons." Which might be roughly translated as, "We can't put it on, haven't got anybody to sing it, and nobody wants to see it anyway."
Courageous
The Tate Gallery, I hear, will be mounting a summer exhibition of cartoons in which the artists have lampooned and parodied modern art — a sitting-duck target if there ever was one, It is a brave venture, reflecting a remarkable confidence that the reputation of some of the Tate's own sacred cows will survive the assault. I wonder if the Hayward, say, could, ever brings itself to stage a similar show? '
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