Friday Productions has brought their masquerade concert series to the Adelaide Fringe. Usually presenting their concerts in more typical classical music settings like the Meeting Hall behind the Adelaide Town Hall or Flinders Street Baptist Church, Friday Productions have relocated the concert to the National Wine Centre. A venue that certainly has a lot going for it with its selection of food and drink. Collecting a masquerade mask as you enter, the audience is encouraged to put it on and embrace the theatricality of what they’re about to witness.

Friday Productions has assembled some of the best instrumental talent South Australia has to offer outside of the ASO in the form of the Adelaide Concert Orchestra chamber players. These are instrumentalists at the top of their game whose day jobs often fall in very different fields who are very capably led by Caroline Lam on violin. The chamber players, as well as accompanying our opera singers for the evening, had their own moments to shine as they performed pieces by the likes of well-known Fauré and Vivaldi, to contemporary composer Karl Jenkins. The chamber players consisted of 4 violins, 2 violas, 2 cellos, a double bass; however, a special mention to oboist Hannah Kovilpillai for Morricone’s Gabriel’s Oboe (The Mission).

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If the evening had a true showstopper, it was tenor Andrew Turner’s rendition of Puccini’s Nessun Dorma (Turandot). While the aria carries the weight of immense expectation, Turner navigated its anthemic heights with both technical precision and a captivating sense of showmanship. He took just enough artistic liberty to keep the interpretation fresh, building toward a final, ringing climax that clearly left the audience in a state of collective, breath-held awe—solidifying its place as the undisputed highlight of the night.