Next Year's Adelaide Festival Will Be The Ultimate Showstopper

The Adelaide Festival is launching its 2022 program and it will be a showstopper featuring a free open-air spectacular and international acts. 

It will kick off on the weekend of March 4-6 with an orchestra featuring some of the African continent’s best musical talents, a rarely performed opera and a free open-air spectacular. 

Chineke!, a classical chamber ensemble of black and ethically diverse musicians led by Nigerian-Irish double bass exponent Chi-chi Nwanoku will feature a number of commissions at the Adelaide Town Hall. 

Never performed in Australia, The Golden Cockerel by Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov, will be directed by Barrie Kosky and star bass-baritone Pavlo Hunka, Russian soprano Venera Gimadieva and Russian tenor Andrei Popov.

The Adelaide Oval will play host to the free world premiere by the South Australian physical theatre company Gravity and Other Myths of its show Macro. Dance troupe Djuki Mala from northern-east Arnhem Land, as well as a mass choir will feature, accompanied by fireworks and giant projection scrims. 

But that’s not all. To celebrate the 40th anniversary of Icehouse’s hit "Great Southern Land", the iconic band will perform at the Adelaide Oval with didgeridoo master William Barton for the opening weekend.

Adelaide Festival Directors Neil Armfield and Rachel Healy are banking on 100% capacity houses with fully vaccination audiences for their latest program. Healy says with the uncertainties brought on by the pandemic, pulling 2022’s program together was even more challenging than the year before.

A renewed sense of confidence and clarity on how to approach the festival in Covid times was instilled in the pair when they returned to Europe this year. 

Having seen Europe’s “new normal”, Healy said providing proof of vaccination upon entry to any event would become standard practice for Australian theatregoers. 

The UK’s Lost Dog dance theatre company will perform Romeo and Juliet reinterpreted on the premise of the two lovers grappling with a midlife crisis and an oratorio with a score by the Brisbane composer Joe Twist and libretto by Alana Valentine and Christos Tsiolkas, will commemorate the 50th anniversary of the gay hate killing of Dr George Ian Ogilvie. The festival will also host two one-woman shows. 

For the full program, check out their website. 

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