Performer: Erin Helyard

A rare 17th-century English Baroque spectacular, designed to delight the Restoration crowd, is given a contemporary twist in Sydney. 

Yaron Lifschitz mesmerises from the opening tableaux’s row of candles in his Purcell staging for Opera Australia, featuring Circa, a Brisbane-based circus company. 

Handel's Giulio Cesare is heavily abridged in Sydney, but generally well-performed musically, albeit with a rather awkward staging by Neil Armfield.