It’s a cool Vivid Sydney night outside the Opera House, the sails glowing with digital blooms. Inside, under the warm hush of the concert hall, Anohni arrives like a spirit from another realm — devastating, divine, and defiantly human.
Nearly two decades after she first mesmerised Australian audiences with Antony and the Johnsons, Anohni returns to the Sydney Opera House, transformed but unmistakable. Her voice still haunts — that same ethereal vibrato now weathered with grief and sharpened by fury. Her most recent album, My Back Was A Bridge For You To Cross (2023) — is a bruised, soul-drenched masterstroke — drenched in melancholy and resistance. The album, named Album of the Year by The New Yorker, is a tribute to strength and solidarity. Its cover — a striking portrait of Marsha P. Johnson — sets the tone: defiant, iconic, and deeply personal. Johnson was a Black trans activist and drag performer who played a key role in the 1969 Stonewall uprising and was a prominent figure in the early gay rights movement. Anohni named her band, Antony and the Johnsons, in honour of Johnson.
Tonight, projected behind Anohni, ghostly underwater visions of the Great Barrier Reef pulse with eerie calm. Created with Australian artist Lynette Wallworth and filmed by Grumpy Turtle Productions, the cinematic backdrops document the reef collapse — a requiem for an ecosystem on the edge. Anohni has turned her focus to the reef’s destruction, having spent time on Lizard Island with marine biologists, documenting the bleaching and acidification firsthand.
The integration of music, including tracks from her extensive discography, archival footage, and scientific insight offers a stark reminder of what is being lost. It’s a performance grounded in fact, rooted in deep collaboration with marine biologists and Australian artists, and delivered with a clarity of purpose: to confront audiences with the scale of ecological collapse and the urgency of collective action.
As my time in the photography pit draws to a close, the full scale of Anohni’s vision becomes clear. I am overwhelmed by the beauty of the images projected behind her and the band — fluid, painterly, at times surreal — but just as devastating are the moments when they turn to grey, showing the destruction of the Great Barrier Reef and the impact this has on the fish and creatures that depend on it for sustenance and survival. The imagery, in combination with Anohni’s luminous voice, is so compelling that I find my viewfinder misting up with tears; it brings home how desperate the situation is. This is more than a concert — it’s a requiem and a rallying cry.
Anohni will give one more performance at the Sydney Opera House on 27 May 2025. Tickets HERE.
Images Deb Pelser
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