Brisbane Festival To Open With Major Australian Premiere Performance

The yearly Brisbane Festival is bearing down quickly, with the three-week-long event officially getting under way on 5 September at the QPAC Playhouse — and now we know what show will be ushering in this year's festivities.

In what will be a major Australian premiere performance, the Brisbane Festival will welcome internationally lauded music-theatre work Coup Fatal as its opening show, enjoying a brief three-day season until 8 September in which attendees have opportunity to witness the acclaimed production, which comes from Congolese countertenor Serge Kakudji, dance-theatre pioneer Alain Platel and a dozen talented musicians from the Congo capital city of Kinsasha.

Coup Fatal comes to the Brisbane Festival in the wake of its celebrated world premiere at Austria's Wiener Festwochen before going on to receive similarly rapturous response at the Netherlands' Holland Festival and the French Avignon Festival. It'll touch down in the Queensland capital fresh from a tour of Europe and the UK. 

The production's announcement as the Brisbane Festival's opening show is a fitting one, as artistic director David Berthold has explained that this year's program has a focus on the Democratic Republic of Congo, designed to give festival-goers "an insight into the troubled nation's vibrant culture".

"Coup Fatal speaks to the experience of a nation right in the heart of Africa and the site of some of the greatest atrocities since World War II," Berthold said in a statement.

"The grace and charm and musical joy of this show is just breathtaking — an utterly unique experience from a nation with an astonishing history."

Coup Fatal joins previously announced premiere Prize Fighter, a joint production between Brisbane Festival and local arts house La Boite Theatre Company, on the program, with the full details of what's on offer this year from 5-26 September due to be announced at the end of next month.

For more information, see the Brisbane Festival event page.