Ben Mingay and Stacey Alleaume to star in Mozart opera The Magic Flute

Opera Australia has set out its intention to be a more identifiably Australian company.

Director Kate Gaul, left, and singers Stacey Alleaume and Ben Mingay, who will appear in The Magic Flute for Opera Australia next year. Picture: Rhiannon Hopley

Opera Australia will put a greater focus on Australian singers and creative teams including First Nations artists as the company outlines its first season at the Sydney Opera House to be planned under new leadership.

A new production of The Magic Flute featuring Stacey Alleaume and Ben Mingay, and a performance of Gluck’s Orpheus and Eurydice in collaboration with circus troupe Circa are highlights next summer in Sydney.

The program devised by guest creative director Lindy Hume is the first indication of a refreshed approach at the national opera company since the departure of long-term artistic director Lyndon Terracini, who favoured international artists and creative teams.

Chief executive Fiona Allan said she appointed Hume as an interim creative director because Jo Davies – a British director of opera and musical theatre who has been appointed OA’s artistic director – doesn’t begin full-time until November.

A scene from the Brisbane season of La Traviata

“(Lindy) knew what we were looking for in an artistic director, and the strategic ambitions we have – how we make the program more Australian, how we focus on Australian artists, how we look to broaden the sorts of programming, how we address gender inequities,” Allan said.

The summer season will open in January with two productions first staged by Opera Queensland: an updated version of La Traviata directed by Sarah Giles, and Orpheus and Eurydice, directed by Circa’s Yaron Lifschitz.

Two Mozart operas, Idomeneo and The Magic Flute, will be staged on the same white set to help reduce construction and technical costs. Kate Gaul is directing The Magic Flute, which will include shadow puppets, and feature popular OA singer Alleaume and musical theatre star Mingay.

Hume will direct Idomeneo in a co-production with Victorian Opera, using specially filmed footage of Tasmania’s wilderness and coastline. Rounding out the summer season is a collaboration with baroque opera company Pinchgut in a concert of Handel’s Theodora.

A scene from Orpheus and Eurydice

“These works were part of a great cultural re-imagining,” Hume said. “The Magic Flute and Idomeneo are about renewed leadership, and learning the lessons of the past.”

Hume was not a candidate for artistic director and helped the company in the early stages of the search.

Allan, who started at OA in November 2021, said the summer season reflected the company’s intention to be more identifiably Australian.

“We are developing new commissioning strands, enhancing our young artists program, committing to a minimum of one First Nations commission or work that is supported every year, and establishing a First Nations advisory group to advise on artistic matters,” she said.