A fine cast led by Maija Kovalevska conveys the timeless beauty and emotion of Puccini’s Parisian melodrama, but the 1930s Berlin setting remains an imperfectly realised transformation.
Turco inspired many a great opera director in the past; understandably, as it offers plenty of splendid comic situations. Simon Phillips' hilarious 2014 production is revived by Opera Australia.
Davide Livermore's digital set for Opera Australia's new production of Aida ushers in a new type of staging to the Sydney Opera House, and backs up a stellar performance from Amber Wagner in the title role.
Remarkable singers and magnificent sets successfully transpose Puccini’s Tosca to Nazi-occupied Rome, bringing home the horror of tyranny and how possible it is to occur.
The quality cast purred, but glorious roars are required to jolt audiences from placid enjoyment of Opera Australia’s gorgeous 24-year-old production of this Verdi classic.
Handa Opera on Sydney Harbour returns with La bohème, in a fine production by Andy Morton, with star turns from Iulia Maria Dan and Ho-Yoon Chung in the lead roles.
Massanet’s Don Quichotte is mounted by Opera Australia, in a production which creaks but is held together by fine singing from Ferruccio Furlanetto and Warwick Fyfe.
Kosky’s The Nose hits Sydney, sweeping the audience along with hallucinogenic energy. Led by the outstanding Martin Winkler and John Tomlinson, singers and musicians deliver a wild evening's entertainment.
An outstanding cast headed by Karah Son in the title role provides a fitting send off for Opera Australia’s much-loved production of Madama Butterfly in Sydney
As clearly visible on all photos, the Sydney Opera House has two “sails”, interconnected major sections. One of them houses concerts, the other operas. Opera performances, however, are not exclusively taking place in the Opera Theatre.
Damiano Michieletto's inspired intertwining of the standard double-bill of Cavalleria rusticana and Pagliacci makes for vivid storytelling, the whole supported by an excellent cast solidly directed by Andrea Licata.
A combination of ingenious sets, truly heroic singing in the title role by Stefan Vinke, and excellence throughout the rest of the cast makes the Melbourne Siegfried an unmissible highlight of the Ring so far.
On a night of technical delays and extraordinary singing, Opera Australia's revival of Die Walküre is particularly memorable for Amber Wagner's Sieglinde and Lise Lindstrom's Brünnhilde.
The revival of Neil Armfield's Melbourne Ring is relaunched with a successful Rheingold, sensitively conducted by Pietari Inkinen, with an especially fine performance from Warwick Fyfe as Alberich.
Verdi's most political opera feels particularly relevant in 2016, and the Opera Australia production convinces, thanks to the outstanding George Petean in the title role and an excellent supporting cast.
Not just a jolly romp through the inconstancies of the heart, Sir David McVicar takes Così fan tutte through a dark lesson for lovers while leaving the music ravishingly intact.
A revival of Francesca Zambello's production of Prokofiev's Love for Three Oranges at the Sydney Opera House is a joy, thanks to the antics of Kanen Breen at the head of a strong cast.
Director John Bell's chosen associations for his Carmen with Strindberg's Dance of Death and Albee's Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf underlined an emphasis upon the fated couple's joint knowledge that nothing they can do will turn the tsunami that's leading to their deaths.
Chinese dragons, Dalek-like pagoda towers: Opera Australia's harbour-side production of Turandot did not shy away from oriental imagery, leading to a spectacular evening's entertainment.
A well-worked revival of Elijah Moshinsky's production of Rossini's Barber of Seville offers gales of laughter and vocal delights at the Sydney Opera House, with starring roles for Paolo Bordogna, Anna Dowsley and Warwick Fyfe
Would Britain enjoy 'The Rabbits'? For that's how the new Australian family opera allegorises the colonial Poms who came to this Terra Nullius Downunder, denying the existence of the native Aborigines - appearing as Marsupials in this opera.
Beautiful sets and a fine cast led by Guillaume Tourniaire can't quite compensate for the dramatic weaknesses in Opera Australia's new production of Bizet's Les pêcheurs de perles.
The ever-popular La bohème returns in Gale Edwards' adaptation which features a change to the final months of the 1930s Weimar Republic as featured in the musical Cabaret.
Giuseppe Verdi’s Don Carlos has finally arrived, for the first time in the 21st century, as a much anticipated highlight of Opera Australia’s current season.
While the billboard advertisements focussed on the presence of the ‘hit aria “Nessun dorma”’, there was much else to enjoy in this Turandot revival in Sydney: a lively, rich production and a strong cast headed by Lise Lindstrom and Yonghoon Lee.
Camels, fireworks, and a gigantic head of Nefertiti: the Sydney Harbour production of Aida is not short on spectacle. Among the cast, Latonia Moore is outstanding in the title role, with good support from Miljana Nikolic as Amneris and Michael Honeyman as Amonasro.
Opera Australia’s Falstaff in Melbourne brings freshness to this almost 20-year-old production. Contributing to its success is an outstanding Falstaff...
The aftermath of an unfortunate tug of war between love and lust entwined in a city gripped by enemy occupation, Tosca’s story digs deep into the human heart.
David McVicar's Don Giovanni for Opera Australia takes its cue from the brutally grim opening of the opera, yet remains true to Mozart’s own description of a “jocular” work (dramma giocoso).
On Harry Kupfer's dramatic set, strong performances by Simon O'Neill (Otello), Lianna Haroutounian (Desdemona) and especially Claudio Sgura (Iago) make Opera Australia's Otello a memorable revival.
Rigoletto contains some of Verdi’s greatest melodies, and Opera Australia’s new production brings out the mixture of passion and darkness the heart of this story.
Àlex Ollé's harbour production of Puccini's Madama Butterfly for Opera Australia is attractive and thought-provoking, with strong performances from Hiromi Omura and Georgy Vasiliev.
Opera Australia's laugh-out-loud production of Il Turco in Italia (“The Turk in Italy”) by Rossini at the Sydney Opera House combines vocal excellence and strong characterisation.
‘To lose one singer, Mr Terracini, may be regarded as a misfortune; to lose two, one of them in the title role, looks like … a disaster’. Such were the thoughts running through my head when the Artistic Director of Opera Australia made the pre-performance announcement.
I left the Sydney Opera House last night feeling vaguely dissatisfied, and yet a bit puzzled at my dissatisfaction. La Traviata is chock-full of Verdi’s most glorious music, and well though I know the score, I wasn’t feeling in the least jaded to begin with.
