Across the program, I was struck by how it was often more in the act of putting on and performing the work, rather than their spoken content, that expressed political responses to our times.
Dr George Ian Ogilvie Duncan was murdered at a gay ‘beat’ in the 1970s. His death was instrumental in South Australia’s decriminalisation of male homosexual acts.
Neil Armfield’s production of the Benjamin Britten opera is a triumph of sure-footed direction, subtle vocal shadings, brilliant comic timing and orchestral precision.
Vivaldi’s Farnace is a masterpiece of 17th century opera, but has been largely forgotten. This new production is the best revival production by Pinchgut Opera yet.
Under director Yaron Lifschitz, this version of Orpheus and Eurydice is interested in exploring the tragedy implicit in this story.
Jade Ferguson/Opera Queensland
A world premiere performance of a new Australian opera is an exhilarating experience. But the music in this reworking of the Peter Carey novel underwhelmed.
Leigh Melrose as Brett Whiteley in Opera Australia’s 2019 production of Whiteley at the Sydney Opera House. The opera focuses on the artist’s addictions and his relationship with his wife.
Prudence Upton
A new opera focuses more on the personal life of artist Brett Whiteley than his artistic creations. As the opera reveals, a life like Whiteley’s does not offer a clear moral message.
Fernando Guimarâes and Brenton Spiteri in The Return of Ulysses.
Brett Boardman
If The Return of Ulysses is not Monteverdi’s most inspired creation, it is close to it. And Pinchgut Opera’s premiere may have been the first time this wonderful work was presented professionally in Australia.
Juan de Dios Mateos as Cavalier Belfiore and Ruth Iniesta as Corinna in Opera Australia’s 2019 production of Il Viaggio a Reims at Arts Centre Melbourne.
Jeff Busby
Gioachino Rossini’s opera was originally meant as a satire of royalist France. A new production updates the work for a modern audience, setting the drama in a museum where the paintings come to life.
Natalie Christie Peluso in The Children’s Bach. The opera is based on Helen Garner’s novella of the same name.
Peter Hislop
It is rare to have a new production of an Australian opera - a vivid new performance of The Children’s Bach was refreshing to see.
Soprano Jane Sheldon in La Passion de Simone. Kaija Saariaho’s work had its Australian premiere at the 2019 Sydney Festival, performed by the Sydney Chamber Opera.
Victor Frankowski
The Australian premiere of La Passion de Simone uses multiple voices to tell a story about philosopher Simone Weil. But the work lacks the emotional drama of its subject’s life.
American mezzo-soprano Vivica Genaux in the lead female role of Mandane in Artaserse.
Brett Boardman
Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg (The Mastersingers of Nuremburg) is a long, complex work. An ensemble performance by Opera Australia transports Wagner’s 16th-century guild of mastersingers to a modern-day men’s club.
Peter Coleman-Wright and Merlyn Quaife during a dress rehearsal of Bliss in 2010: it is one of few important local operas over the past three decades to have been staged a second time.
Tracey Nearmy/AAP
Australian operas have been written about many pressing topics - from the Stolen Generations to the Lindy Chamberlain case - but few have been staged a second time. What is going wrong?
Veiled girls appear with death masks in Sydney Chamber Opera’s The Howling Girls.
Zan Wimberley
A new opera explores the story of five girls who believed that debris from the World Trade Centre was lodged in their throats after the September 11 terrorist attacks.
Allan Clayton as Hamlet and Lorina Gore as Ophelia in Brett Dean’s opera at the Adelaide Festival.
Tony Lewis
Neil Armfield’s production of the Brett Dean opera Hamlet is a confronting three hours in the theatre, but then so is Shakespeare’s play. The second act is devastating in its emotional impact.