Performer: John Wegner

I’ve never been to a sing-along Sound of Music, but apparently audience etiquette requires pantomime booing of the Nazis. More than a few attendees at the opening night of Opera Australia’s new production of Tosca responded in a similar fashion at the curtain call, and it had nothing to do with a generally excellent performance. For yes, there were Nazis.

Salome was a huge, scandalous success at its 1905 première, and stagings of this, Richard Strauss’ third opera, have continued to shock audiences over the past century. This is hardly to be wondered at: after all, the title character’s final monologue ends with her kissing the severed head of John the Baptist, whom she has had executed for spurning her advances.

Fidelio, Beethoven's only opera, is on the most universal of themes: the oppression of the innocent by the powerful and the virtue of the struggle for a loved one. It could be set at any time in any place, from Ancient Rome or China to our modern world.