Performer: Simon Hewett

Marianela Núñez was in her element as the huntress in Ashton's charming ballet. 

Was she – or wasn’t she – the Grand Duchess Anastasia, youngest daughter of Russia's last tsar who had survived the massacre of her family in 1917? Natalia Osipova made you believe she was. 

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.