Gluck’s “Orpheus & Eurydice” is set to be presented in Melbourne from Dec. 2-5, 2025 at the Regent Theatre. The production by Yaron Lifschitz will be presented in collaboration with Opera Australia and Edinburgh International Festival and will star Australian soprano Samantha Clarke, who performs both Amore and Eurydice and British countertenor Iestyn Davies as Orfeo. They will perform alongside {…}
Opera Australia is set to present Bizet’s “Carmen” with Danielle de Niese in the title role. The soprano will make a return to her home city in a new production of “Carmen” from Nov. 15 to 25 at the Regent Theatre. De Niese will star in Anne-Louise Sarks’ new production, which will feature collaborations with Tony Award-winning Marg Horwell, who {…}
Opera Australia has announced that its upcoming Melbourne opera season will be held at the Regent Theatre. The company said that the operas will run in “stagione” for this season, meaning the same production will be performed for multiple consecutive performance dates before the next production begins. This approach will be different from how it usually presents operas in “repertory’ programming,” {…}
(Photo credit: Keith Saunders) Gale Edwards’ 2011 production of “La Bohème,” part of this year’s Opera Australia winter season at the Sydney Opera House, was last seen here in summer 2023. The production’s dominant ideas are that of a spiegeltent and cabaret in Weimar-era Berlin – “the dazzling fishnets and fairy lights world of 1930s Berlin,” according to the company’s {…}
Opera Australia has announced the appointment of in-demand Italian conductor and composer Maestro Andrea Battistoni as the company’s new Music Director, commencing in January 2026. In a statement, Outgoing OA Chair Rod Sims said, “Andrea’s combination of youth, artistry, and international experience has established him as a hugely respected conductor globally. His highly anticipated appointment will be invaluable to OA’s {…}
(Photo credit: Keith Saunders) This winter season at Sydney Opera House has seen Opera Australia once again revive Sir David McVicar’s 2015 production of Mozart’s “Marriage of Figaro,” restaged by Andy Morton previously, as recently as 2022. OperaWire has pertinently noted the repeat of “tried and true” in Opera Australia’s 2025 season in a recent review of “Rusalka” (itself not {…}
Opera Australia has announced its 2026 season. Sidney Summer 2026 Puccini’s “Madama Butterfly” will be conducted by Andrea Battistoni, Paul Fitzsimon, and Erina Yashima. It will be directed by Moffatt Oxenbould and will star Guanqun Yu, Vittoria Yeo, and Olivia Cranwell alongside Robert Watson and Oreste Cosimo. Performance Dates: Dec. 31, 2025-March 25, 2026 Ann Yee directs a new production {…}
(© Carlita Sari) Of Antonín Dvořák’s ten operas, “Rusalka,” written around the dawn of the twentieth century and only a few years before the composer’s death, became his most successful. That this highly romantic fairytale (or should one say, water nymph tale?) should be the most courageous of Opera Australia’s (OA) offerings for the second half of this year, tells {…}
Opera Australia has announced that the Chorus will perform an exclusive one-night-only concert of Maurice Duruflé’s Requiem at Sydney’s historic St James’ Church. The concert, which will be held on May 22, will showcase 30-strong Opera Australia Chorus members and will be led by Chorus Master Paul Fitzsimon and accompanied by Chad Kelly who will play the church’s Bicentennial Pipe {…}
(Photo credit: Keith Saunders) The Opera Australia production of Purcell’s “Dido and Aeneas” that opened at the Sydney Opera House on March 13 was the second time in a year that Erin Helyard conducted the work. Previously, Helyard’s own company Pinchgut Opera had presented the work at Angel Place Recital Hall. This time Helyard conducted a co-production between Opera Australia {…}
(Photo credit: Carlita Sari) Lillian Hellman, who suggested the idea of the musical “Candide” to the great American composer Leonard Bernstein, once described Voltaire’s original 1759 novel on which the show is based as “the greatest piece of slapdash ever written.” The novel certainly packs a breathless pace as it follows its eponymous hero on an adversity-filled journey around the {…}