Adelaide Festival leans into its reputation as a truly international arts festival in 2025, with a program featuring leading Irish actor Stephen Rea performing Beckett, a contemporary Finnish opera about the aftermath of a school shooting, a music-meets-memoir tribute to the Rwandan genocide of 1994, and a streamlined celebration of the complete works of Shakespeare – performed by salt shakers, tomato sauce bottles and other mundane objects.
“Since my first Adelaide Festival in 2006, I’ve had the privilege of continuing to present live performances and to analyse exactly why the art forms of theatre, music, dance and opera continue to thrive. The explosion in recent research into what makes us happy has landed on a not surprising though now scientifically validated conclusion – humans are made happy by the experiential over the material. Simply put, we reach our greatest enjoyment and satisfaction through experiences over things. And Adelaide Festival is a living embodiment of this,” he says.
