Just East of Victoria Square / Tarntanyangga, in Adelaide’s city mile, a brief, immersive twenty-minute Fringe offering awaits the curious.

St Francis Xavier is Adelaide’s landmark Catholic church building and the oldest Catholic cathedral in Australia, with construction beginning in 1851.  The Gothic Revival building (first consecrated in 1858 but not officially completed until the bell tower was finalized in 1996) is quite imposing as you sit in the pews and gaze up at the wooden rafters and lofty, pointed, arched openings along the sides of the nave.

Cathedral Chiaroscuro is somewhat akin to the artful North Terrace illuminations shone onto historic buildings that began around 2016 and garnered great attention from strolling crowds: cleverly placed projectors play light and moving image onto the church’s interior architecture.  These moving images and illustrations dip into a colour palette that ranges from cool blue tones through pinks, reds, and ochres.  Images of clouds, moving water, shifting ‘mosaics’, and a fascinating marbled pattern in neutrals and greys shine over the interior, fading then re-emerging each time a different music track is played.  The last images ‘grew’ into a lush, blooming garden, covering the walls to the strains of Vivaldi’s Gloria in D Major.

All the very pleasing images were accompanied by various recorded hymns or piano solos, prior to the Gloria.  At certain moments as the music would swell, archway reliefs were subtly limned with just-flickering golden halo-like surrounds.  As I often make an effort to do, observing the other attendees gives you a sense of how an event is landing; this light show certainly seemed to impress.

My only (small) reservation during the event was the quality of the sound.  The speakers were sadly not up to scratch for the volume the recordings were playing at.  The truly beautiful music would have been that much more impactful without the slight distortion that was occurring.

I still say the visit to Cathedral Chiaroscuro is a worthwhile one.  We added it to our evening after an Adelaide Festival show, on a beautiful early Autumn night here in Adelaide.  To sit in peaceful contemplation of beauty, and life, in sacred surrounds, is always a fine thing to do.