Opera Australia announces Sydney and Melbourne seasons

Four operas by Australian composers is an unprecedented commitment to local artists from Opera Australia and new artistic director Jo Davies.

Opera Australia artistic director Jo Davies. Picture: Daniel Boud

The first season from incoming Opera Australia artistic director Jo Davies has turned the dial significantly towards opera made by Australians, by women – and by Puccini.

The national company will next year stage four operas by Australian composers, an unprecedented commitment to local artistic expression where Europeans have long held sway.

New Australian operas having their world premieres are Jonathan Mills’s Eucalyptus, based on the novel by Murray Bail, and Gilgamesh by Jack Symonds.

Hamlet, the internationally celebrated opera by Brett Dean, and Joseph Twist’s oratorio Watershed: The Death of Doctor Duncan will both have their Sydney premieres.

Davies, a British director of opera and musical theatre, does not officially start at OA until next month and has programmed the 2024 season along with Lindy Hume.

Mark Oates and Mason Kelly in Watershed, seen at the 2022 Adelaide Festival. Picture: Andrew Beveridge

The refreshed approach to programming follows the 13-year tenure of Lyndon Terracini, who favoured international singers and production teams. Davies said the company had made a commitment to presenting opera by and for Australians.

“It’s our guiding principle – to tell Australian stories and use Australian artists and Australian creative teams,” she said from her home in England.

“That’s very important to me. If there isn’t appetite for it, we’ll know soon enough.”

Davies also has started to address gender equity at OA and the low proportion of key creative jobs assigned to women.

A new production of The Magic Flute with Ben Mingay and Stacey Alleaume will be conducted by Teresa Riveiro Bohm and directed by Kate Gaul. Picture: Rhiannon Hopley

Featured in the season are conductors Jessica Cottis (La Traviata, Breaking the Waves), Teresa Riveiro Bohm (The Magic Flute), Lidiya Yankovskaya (Il Trittico) and Zoe Zeniodi (Cosi fan tutte), and directors Lindy Hume (Idomeneo, Theodora), Sarah Giles (La Traviata), Kate Gaul (The Magic Flute), Anne-Louise Sarks (Breaking the Waves), and Imara Savage (Suor Angelica).

A scene from Tosca, coming to Opera Australia in 2024. The production is from Opera North in Britain. Picture: James Glossop

Puccini, in the centenary year of his death, is represented with four productions: a regional tour of La Boheme; a new Tosca from Britain’s Opera North; a Puccini Gala concert; and a new production of Il Trittico, a trilogy of one-act operas where each is staged by a different director.

Melbourne’s State Theatre is closed for three years for renovations and OA is using other venues, including Margaret Court Arena for Tosca, the Palais Theatre for Eucalyptus and the Geelong Arts Centre for The Magic Flute. Eucalyptus will also be seen in Perth and Brisbane.

Allan Clayton in Hamlet, the internationally celebrated opera by Australian composer Brett Dean. Picture: Richard Hubert Smith