Adelaide Festival

The tour starts at 3.00pm on Sunday 2 March, at the Crowne Plaza Adelaide.

The tour ends after breakfast on Monday 10 March, at the Crowne Plaza Adelaide.

The tour begins in our Adelaide hotel at 3.00pm, where we meet in the bar for a welcome drink and light appetisers. Following brief introductions, we take in our first festival performance – Kaija Saariaho’s operatic thriller Innocence, directed by Simon Stone. The production, set in Helsinki at a wedding reception, features a multi-level rotating set that allows performers to switch locations and points in time. New Zealand opera singer Teddy Tahu Rhodes will perform alongside international opera singers Sean Panikkar, Jenny Carlstedt, Tuomas Pursio and Claire de Sevigne, with Clément Mao-Takacs conducting the Adelaide Symphony Orchestra. Returning to our hotel, we then enjoy a welcome dinner at Koomo on the 10th floor of the Crowne Plaza, with stunning views over the city. Overnight Adelaide (D)

Performance I
Venue: Adelaide Festival Centre
Program: Opera - Innocence, by Kaija Saariaho

After a lecture in our hotel this morning, we make our way to the South Australian Museum for a tour through the Australian Aboriginal Cultures Gallery. This collection of over 3,000 artefacts from Central Australia and the Top End is considered among the best in the world and will be shown to us by an Indigenous guide. The afternoon is then set aside to enjoy sessions at Writers’ Week – Australia’s largest free literary festival located in the Pioneer Women’s Memorial Garden, a short walk from our hotel. We reconvene this evening our second festival performance, Caída del Cielo (Fallen From Heaven). Performed to live music combining original composition, flamenco and rock, this daring work by Iconoclastic choreographer and dancer Rocío Molina transforms a traditional dance form into an explosive, theatrical experience. Overnight Adelaide (B)

Performance II
Venue: Her Majesty’s Theatre
Program: Dance - Caída del Cielo, by Rocio Molina

Today we head to the Adelaide Hills to visit The Cedars, the estate of artists Hans Heysen and his daughter Nora where more than 200 of their original artworks are displayed. Located a few minutes from the picturesque German Village of Hahndorf, this charming arts and crafts residence offers one of the best historic artist house-studios anywhere. A curator of the estate will take us through the studios and house, before time to enjoy the charming garden. We then return to Adelaide with the opportunity to take in more Writers’ Week sessions. This evening we make our way to one of Australia’s finest concert halls, Elder Hall, located on the University of Adelaide’s North Terrace campus. Here Dorcy Rugamba, actor, author and leading figure of the Rwandan cultural scene, offers us a moving narrative, bolstered by a pen and voice of rare intensity. In a musical reading – 30 years after the genocide in Rwanda – Dorcy brings to life an extract from the work Hewa Rwanda: Lettre au absente (letter to the absent), published by JC Lattès. Overnight Adelaide (B)

Performance III
Venue: Elder Hall, University of Adelaide
Program: Musical Reading - Hewa Rwanda: Lettre au absente

After a talk in the hotel this morning, we head to the Adelaide Festival Centre where Stephen Rea returns in Samuel Beckett’s solo masterpiece, Krapp’s Last Tape. Rea’s critically-acclaimed performance captivated audiences during its sell-out run in Dublin earlier this year. Using a tape recorder as a memory device, Krapp allows us to contemplate his life from different vantages on a strikingly illuminated stage. There will then be some time this afternoon to attend a Writers’ Week session before we return to the Festival Centre for the performance, My Cousin Frank. Rhoda Roberts AO takes to the stage for an evening of personal storytelling as she shares tales of her first cousin Frank, a Widjabul Wia-bal and Githabul man from Cubawee (a self-managed Aboriginal settlement), and the irrepressible Roberts family of Lismore. Overnight Adelaide (B)

Performance IV
Venue: Dunstan Playhouse, Adelaide Festival Centre
Program: One-act play - Krapp’s Last Tape

Performance V
Venue: Space Theatre, Adelaide CBD
Program: First Nations storytelling - My Cousin Frank

Located in hilly terrain south of Adelaide, McLaren Vale is one of Australia’s most celebrated wine-growing regions, known especially for its shiraz. In the late morning, we have a special wine tasting before enjoying a relaxed lunch at the highly-regarded The Currant Shed restaurant, with an ever-changing seasonal menu featuring locally-sourced produce. In the later afternoon, we return to Adelaide via the historic village of Clarendon. Nestled in a picture-perfect gully alongside the majestic Onkaparinga River, this English-style village is steeped in colonial architecture. Tonight sees us head to Adelaide’s Botanic Gardens for a special exhibition by the celebrated contemporary glass artist Dale Chihuly. Inside the strikingly modern and award-winning Bicentennial Conservatory, groupings of Chihuly’s dramatically lit glass sculptures will appear to sprout like ‘hybrid plants’ from the vegetation. Overnight Adelaide (B, L)

After a leisurely breakfast we make our way to the Art Gallery of South Australia, where we have a guided tour through the gallery’s extensive collection. Spanning the period from ancient Rome to the present, the collection includes paintings, sculptures, prints, drawings, photographs, textiles, ceramics, glass, metalwork and jewellery, and even furniture. From here we head to Jolleys Boathouse on the banks of the River Torrens. One of Adelaide’s great places to dine, our innovative lunch menu will be based on local, seasonal produce. There will be time to freshen up back at our hotel before tonight’s performance of the landmark musical Hedwig and the Angry Inch at the historic Queens Theatre. Winner of the Tony Award as Best Revival of a Musical, this fourth-wall smashing sensation sees Seann Miley Moore – recently celebrated for their role-defining take on The Engineer in Miss Saigon – transform into the character of Hedwig, a fractued, hedonistic, anti-heroine ready to break every rule on their journey in search of stardom and love. Overnight Adelaide (B, L)

Performance VI
Venue: The Queens Theatre, Gilles Arcade
Program: Musical - Hedwig and the Angry Inch

We begin today with a talk in our hotel, before returning to the Art Gallery of South Australia to view the special Festival exhibition Reimagining the Renaissance. This major exhibition offers a fresh and captivating perspective on this iconic era, with over 140 significant works from the Renaissance, spanning various art forms like painting, sculpture, drawing and printmaking. A rooftop lunch is then enjoyed at 2KW Bar & Restaurant, situated on of one of Adelaide’s most historically significant buildings with postcard views of the city. Before tonight’s performance at the Festival Centre with Forced Entertainment, we meet in the hotel bar for a pre-show drink and a selection of canapés. Across three of Shakespeare’s plays – Love’s Labour’s Lost, Richard II and The Taming of the Shrew – six performers will create a condensed version of each, comically and intimately retelling them as compelling stories on the stage of an ordinary table top, as they use a collection of everyday objects as stand-ins for the characters. Think salt and pepper pot for the king and queen, a ruler for the prince and a spoon for the servant... Overnight Adelaide (B, C, L)

Performance VII
Venue: Space Theatre, Adelaide CBD
Program: Forced Entertainment’s Tabletop Shakespeare

This morning we depart by coach to the UKARIA Cultural Centre, a small concert venue in a lovely setting deep in the Adelaide Hills. One of the leading venues for chamber music in Australia, here David Harrington (founder of the Kronos Quartet) introduces our performances with the Australian String Quartet and Melbourne’s Affinity Quartet. In our first performance featuring Janácek’s 2nd String Quartet Intimate Letters, regarded as a highlight of the
modern string quartet literature, we are joined by Trio da Kali – three of the finest traditional griot musicians from Mali. Our second peformance will feature award-winning Vietnamese musician Van-Anh Vo playing the 16-string đàn tranh (zither), and Indonesian composer and singer Peni Candra Rini in a composition commissioned by the Kronos Quartet. Between performances, lunch will be served in the spacious garden terrace restaurant. We return to Adelaide in the late afternoon, and tonight we enjoy a farewell dinner at Osteria Oggi – a vibrant Italian restaurant in the heart of the CBD. Overnight Adelaide (B, L, D)

Performance VIII
Venue: UKARIA Cultural Centre, Mount Barker
Program: David Harrington, Trio da Kali, Australian String Quartet

Performance IV
Venue: UKARIA Cultural Centre, Mount Barker
David Harrington, Affinity, Van-Anh Vo, Australian String Quartet, Peni-Candra Rini

The tour concludes after breakfast this morning. (B)