The Sydney Morning Herald from Sydney, New South Wales, Australia • Page 22

ARTS Today's TV: 21 22 Thursday, July 1, 1993 The Idiot on stage: 19 SPOTLIGHT Meistersinger off Merit in modest designs By GERALDINE O'BRIEN Urban Affairs Writer Iff Kltlil J) he Australian Opera has been forced to cancel tonight's opening of Die Meistersinger von Numberg. Bruce Martin, who plays Hans Sachs, and John Pringle (Sixtus Beckmes-ser) are both suffering from flu, a spokeswoman said yesterday. Meistersinger seems to be a jinxed production for Martin. In 1988 he was forced to withdraw from the premiere season in order to undergo the second of three operations for a sinus condition that had dogged him since a bout of flu in 1985. The next scheduled performance of the five-and-a-half-hour opera is next Monday.

John Pringle struck by flu. Pollies love limelight -Oil-. ii i Contemporary Art's Art of this World exhibition tonight and Ken Gilroy's landscape show at Access Gallery on Saturday. Other recent sightings: Ros Kelly opening the David Voigt show at Wagner Gallery; Senator Graham Richardson at Sherman Goodhope (Akio Makigawa) and Holdsworth (Contemporary Russian Artists); Janice Crosio (The Dunera Boys, National Maritime Museum). Meanwhile, the man who inspired this rash of photo-opportunism, Paul Keating, is booked for Colin Lanceley's show, also at Sherman Good-hope, in late August JpTTLL recovering from the shock of seeing Tim Fischer (minus hat) at the opening night of the Sydney Film Festival, we wonder if the arts bandwagon is in danger of losing a wheel or two.

It's a case of move to the back of the wagon please as pollies of every colour clamber aboard. Giving Peter Collins a real run for his money in the RSVP stakes is the Federal Minister for the Arts, Senator Bob McMullan, who, after recent speaking parts at Belvoir Street Theatre, the Sydney Film Festival, Solander Gallery (ACT) and the Arts Law Centre, is scheduled to open the Museum of Tilda Swinton (right) as Orlando filled with happiness in his love for the Russian diplomat's daughter (Charlotte Valandrey). COSTUMED JEWEL THE recession can be blamed for no Salman Award being given in this year's Royal Australian Institute of Architects Awards, but it can also be thanked for some work which is modest in scale, ingenious, habitable and beautifuC According to Andrew Andersons, the awards jury chairman, the "silver lining" to the recession is that "a number of highly skilled architects are concerning themselves with small-scale jobs showing really creative, innovative design solutions. There is nothing modest about the achievement; the modesty is in the scale and Although the Sulman medal for public buildings was not awarded at last night's ceremony at the Museum of Contemporary Art, three projects received merit awards in the public buildings category. These were the ANA Hotel building in The Rocks (architects MitcheU Giurgola Thorp), the Children's Medical Research Institute at Westmead (Ancher Mortlock Woolley) and Loyola College at Rooty Hill (Melbourne firm Denton Corker Marshall).

And if there was no Sulman, there was for the first time since 1989 a Lloyd Rees Award for Urban Design, which went to the Department of Housing and architect John Gregory of the department's design branch for Walker Street, Waterloo. The Sydney Cove Authority, with architects Conybeare Morrison and Tropman Tropman won a merit award in this category for street improvements in The Rocks. Other winners were the Wilkinson Award for a Residential Building: holiday house, Palm Beach (Jim Koopman, Gordon and Valich); merit awards: Artarmon residence (John Doyle) and house at Whale Beach (Richard Francis-Jones, MitcheU Giurgola and Thorp). Greenway Award for Conservation: The Stonework Program (Government Architect's Office, Department of Public Works); merit awards to EARP Gillam Bond Store, Newcastle (Suters Architects Snell) and Susannah Place (Robert A. Moore with Sydney Cove Authority).

Interior Design: merit awards to Perraton apartment, Park Regis (Stephen Varady); Annan-dale studio house (Graham Jahn); Clayton Utz Building, 1 O'Connell Street (Bates, Smart and McCutcheon). Craft in Architecture Award: Mural in Capita Building (Lin Utzon). Page 19: Waterloo wins by a street. FILM HELEN GREENWOOD But Orlando is not weighty intellectual fodder; quite the contrary. This is a genuine artifice, seemingly profound and superficially smart; a series of set pieces, each one more visually alluring than the last; layer upon layer of brilliantly diverting accomplishments.

No thematic bravura here, no cerebral demands which is why the glib comparisons with Peter Greenaway are so meaningless but a carefully constructed maze of ideas that brush past like the leaves on Orlando's Victorian dress, but leave us back where we started. The other jewel in Orlando is the performance of Tilda Swinton, whose enigmatic gaze and harnessed sexual energy bind the disparate narrative and thematic elements together. In the most touching scene, Orlando, so filled with happiness in his love for the Russian diplomat's daughter (Charlotte Valandrey), draws away from her in tears, his face in ruins as he contemplates the inevitability that such happiness is doomed not to last It is a moment that strikes a chord, a rare one in this film. If any complaint were to be made, it is that Orlando is a rondo rather than a concerto; like a pretty bonbon, it tantalises but never satisfies. scenes of limpid beauty, candlelit and glimmering with the colours of rich clothes and roses, pageantry and passion are established as the leitmotivs.

From Elizabethan times to Regency to Victorian times, Orlando, wide-eyed and wondering like some Voltanan ingenue, meanders from drawing room to salon, observing the peccadilloes and prejudices of high-vaulted society. Along the way, Orlando (the film) and Orlando (the character) prick the literary pretensions of the Victorian age; the Regency poets Swift and Pope and Addison; the Xanadu of Samuel Taylor Coleridge; the male-dominated landscape of English literature all this in a narrative that unfolds with the rhythm of poetry and musical cadences. The caricatures are clever and subtle exaggerated costumes that parody the excesses of each period: the daffy Archduke Harry (John Wood) as the archetypal Englishman conquering a world he doesn't even pretend to understand; Lothaire Bluteau faintly sending up the mysterious, fey Khan, who mirrors perfectly Orlando's carefully constructed sexual ambivalence. The director, Sally Potter, also makes her point about the constraints on women with delicacy. Carlos Gallardo as the wandering minstrel of the title and co-producer of ElMariachi.

ORLANDO Directed by Sally Potter Written by Sally Potter Greater Union: Pitt Centre. Rated PG ORLANDO is a delightful conceit, a knowing wink of a joke. Already lauded overseas for its breathtaking visuals and tripping irony, the film shines like paste jewellery, more real than the real thing. Orlando (Tilda Swinton) is a beautiful young man but so obviously played by a beautiful young woman that we accept the gender crossing as more than window dressing who is destined to live several lives, first as a man, then as a woman. The film owes its life to Virginia Woolf infatuation with Vita Sackville-West and her subsequent penning of a slight story part love poem, part fantasy, part ode.

Orlando begins by becoming the favourite of the famous aging virgin, Elizabeth I (played to regal perfection in another uncanny reversal by the queen famous for being a queen, Quentin Crisp). In Sartor-ial splendour RANK Sartor may operate on a different tier of government but he, too, is a politician passionate about the arts. The Lord Mayor's speech at a ceremony yesterday to mark the start of work on the Capitol Theatre was peppered with phrases such as "giving the city a "cultural and enriching "vibrant and enriching environment" and "cultural Sartor was the only lead at yesterday's performance in costume. Dressed rather selfconsciously in the mayoral robes, he appeared to relax when given a laurel wreath by the Australian Ballet's Suzanne Davidson to replace the Napoleonic hat Ipoh Garden's managing director, Jim Barrett, a fellow student of the arts, made a lovely Freudian slip when he referred to the festivities planned for the reopening in January 1995 as the Lord Mayor's "galah er, gala" event "I am not referring to the outfit that he is wearing," he was quick to assure guests. Seconds earlier Barrett had caused eyebrows to raise when he mentioned the Capitol management's desire to "bed down with Miss Saigon or whatever the flavour of the month Recount on films THE flurry of excitement Hi counting the votes on Satur-M.

day night, the Sydney Film Festival people dropped a bundle during the Audience's Poll count, to the chagrin of Australian film directors Tom Zubrycki and Frank Rijavec. In the category of Best Documentary, Zubrycki's film Homelands actually came in second to the winner, Visions of Light, and third was Rijavec's Exile and the Kingdom. Frank Perry's On the Bridge, which had initially been put into second place, was fourth Class act on the cheap EL MARIACHI Directed and Written by Robert Rodriguez Hoyts cinemas. Rated THIS western-writ-large Mexican film by the first-time director, Robert Rodriguez goes where many people have tried to go and often failed: into the land of the tight and controlled and funny parody. The wandering minstrel, el man-achi (Carlos Gallardo), comes into town and is mistaken for a killer (Reinol Martinez), who also carries a guitar case and wears black.

Our songster hero, shy and endearing, is adept at getting out of life-threatening situations, picking up a gun as if it were second nature and killing four men in one shoot-out The guns and gangsters cliches abound, but oh, so knowingly. The gringo villain is all the more Continued Page 21 Lynden Barber is on leave. THREE DAYS SKIING FOR THE PRICE OF TWO. CHIMNEY PIECES Maible, Limestone Sandstone I. A Ski Weekend at The Kosciusko Chalet, Charlotte Pass Village comes with a three day ski lift pass for Charlotte Pass resort, valid Friday, Saturday and Sunday, giving you a boons day's siding free.

You'll ski free of crowds as well. We are a small, intimate resort -total population of the Village is only 607 so unlike skiing the larger resorts, you can spend the entire weekend actually skiing, not just waiting in lift lines. To make the most of your long weekend, we recommend you stay at the luxurious Canberra Hyatt or at Olims Canberra Hotel on Thursday night. We've negotiated special rates for Chalet guests at both hotels. Then you can get up to The Chalet bright and early on Friday morning to make the most of that extra free day on your weekend lift pass.

Adult rates start from $358 per person and children under 14 are only $158 each. This includes 2 dinners, 2 breakfasts, return oversnow transport from Perisher and your three day lift pass. With the early snow our Ski Weekends are going fast Don't miss out. Wine, Dine and Only Pay in Degrees. From July 6, luncheon at The Ritz-Carlton, Sydney is even more appealing on cold days.

As the temperature drops, so does the price of our main course. So when it's 14C outside, you'll be enjoying The Ritz-Carlton's renowned cuisine, with tea or coffee included, for just $14- Here's to a cold winter! Phone The Dining Room on 252 4600 for your reservation. 111 iisiisiiji ij i ijljuu i i II 1'iTi itt rn i ini smite Lmm at Sydney's Theatre Royal. Further, fifty runners up will receive the complete and unedited souvenir double CD edition of The Phantom of the Opera, courtesy of Polydor. For your chance to win, complete the coupon below and post to: The Sydney Morning Herald Phantom of the Opera Competition GPO Box 3751, Sydney NSW 2001 1 Address: Postcode: KOSCIUSKO The Phantom of the Opera is about to explode into Sydney on July 24 and we think the Sydney Phantom is the best production in the world.

However, we'll let one lucky Sydney Morning Herald reader decide! Our winner and a friend will see The Phantom of the Opera in Sydney, then they will fly to London with QANTAS to see the London production. Included is 7 nights accommodation in a deluxe room at The Regent London, PLUS $3,000 spending money on a Commonwealth Bank Mastercard. The next ten entries drawn will receive tickets to see The Phantom of the Opera in its pre vie week UHIALET Book your Sid Weekend on free call 008 026 369 or (064) 57 5245 Charlotte Pass Village 5SH Phone Number (Day): I TRAPPINGS 481 Elizabeth Street Surry Hills Tel: 698 7404 Fax: 319 1432 CATALOGUE AVAILABLE THERrrz-CARnoN Sydney 93 Macquame Street Outside Sydney 008 252 888 Correction Please note that rates listed in our advertisement yesterday, Wednesday June 30, 1993, were incorrect. Shoulder season rates as listed above apply as of June 27, 1993. We apologise for any inconvenience caused.

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