It was dear Oscar Wilde, wasn’t it, who devised that early mot du jour “Good writers borrow; great writers steal,” an aphorism that has since been borrowed by many. La Cieca will leave it up to the reader to decide whether the Handa Opera on Sydney Harbour production of La traviata ranks as a “good” or a “great” example of idea appropriation; meanwhile she will just sit back and marvel at Francesca Zambello‘s idea that setting Verdi’s opera on an comically oversized silver tea tray beneath an even more comically oversized chandelier might be considered “art” anywhere in the civilized world. (So shiny!)

Photo by Lisa Tomasetti