Performer: Benedict Andrews

Gifted conductor Andrea Battistoni and a vocally seductive cast made this revival of Benedict Andrews’s flawed La bohème a musical triumph.

A woman, mother and outcast needs to make life choices in a hostile environment.

Despite some fine singing, Benedict Andrew's production of La bohème for English National Opera is devoid of heart. 

For his first collaboration with the Dutch National Opera, Australian director Benedict Andrews emphasizes the modernity of Puccini’s most popular opera.

Where could be more appropriate to see the story of Caligula, Rome’s most notorious emperor/self-proclaimed God, than in the Coliseum! Its purple SPQR livery made the opening to this performance all the more striking as Caligula, dishevelled, unhinged and not a little scary, crept on stage through the curtain in dead silence.

From the opening bars of the Overture of Opera Australia’s production of Mozart’s The Marriage of Figaro it was clear that this was going to be a production with a difference. As the orchestra began, the curtain raised to reveal a room, painted in brilliant white, with clothes rails at either end containing maids’ costumes.