Possibly best suited to opera afficionados, “Knowing the Score” relates the story of the trailblazing Simone Young, who travels from Manly Beach to the wide male-dominated world of opera and classical music, and conquers them all, reaching the top of the profession. The documentary hinges on her return to conduct at the newly renovated Sydney Opera House, an occasion intensified by an earlier tenure at Opera Australia when she had been sacked. The hero is a modestly charismatic figure, the filming involves some imaginative graphics, the direction is steady, but I felt insufficient dramatization was invoked, dramatization that was there in the underlying story but not amped up. Truth be told, the operatic milieu is not for this reviewer, perhaps coloring my impressions, so Knowing the Score, with its grand theme of our over-slow passage to gender equality, might well appeal to many.
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