With its recycled set, this Carmen already creates a precedent. But Charlotte Kelso’s performance in the title role makes it uniquely worth seeing.

Fourteen years after her last survey exhibition, a rare showing of new work from Anna Platten sees the reclusive artist reckon with ageing and death in her own virtuosic, idiosyncratic style.

Powerhouse film composer Hans Zimmer briefly flew into Adelaide for an evening of surging basslines and recognisable scores from The Dark Knight to The Lion King, backed by a sprawling ensemble. Foremost it was the man and musician who one appreciated getting to witness.

Olivia De Zilva’s irreverent debut poetry collection melds the language of pop and online culture with the absurdities of late-stage capitalism to explore the human costs of living in a world obsessed with productivity.

The late American actor Ron Vawter made a huge impression at the 1986 Adelaide Festival. A new film from Ira Sachs sees Oscar-winner Rami Malek play a character partly inspired by Vawter’s life and tragic death.

Adelaide Festival’s youngest ever artistic director and self-described ‘Kafka groupie’ is back to present one of the 2027 event’s first major announcements: a Yiddish vaudeville-inspired take on Franz Kafka’s The Trial.