PRESENTED BY SYDNEY CHAMBER OPERA, OPERA AUSTRALIA AND CARRIAGEWORKS

The world’s oldest poem. Opera’s most cutting-edge artists.

The ancient and contemporary collide to dazzling effect in this world premiere.

The Epic of Gilgamesh is humanity’s oldest written epic poem. Emerging from ancient Mesopotamian mythology, it tells of a restless young king who, through experiences of love and loss, becomes a better person. His unexpected love for a half-man, half-animal leads him wide-eyed into mysterious realms.

Gilgamesh’s story sings to us across millennia, and this brand-new opera uncovers all that remains strikingly relevant: its approach to mortality, sexuality and our relationship with nature. This is the first opera in English based upon this foundational part of civilisation.

Composed by Sydney Chamber Opera Artistic Director Jack Symonds and brought to Carriageworks’ vast performance space by visionary director Kip Williams (Sydney Theatre Company’s The Picture of Dorian Gray), Gilgamesh is an epic that must be experienced.

Singing scorpions share the stage with a Bull of Heaven and oracles predicting the end of the world.

This marks the first time we’ve collaborated with Sydney Chamber Opera, a company renowned for presenting “an astonishing new vision of what contemporary opera can achieve” (Time Out). Two outstanding chamber music ensembles bring a collective virtuosity to this colourful new score: Australian String Quartet and Ensemble Offspring.

Symonds conducts a cast of Australian contemporary opera specialists. Jeremy Kleeman and Mitchell Riley play Gilgamesh and the beast Enkidu, joined by Jane Sheldon, Jessica O’Donoghue and Daniel Szesiong Todd.

PRESENTED BY VICTORIAN OPERA

Puccini’s gift for mesmerising melodies captures the essence of romance and love at first sight between a Parisian courtesan, Magda, and her naive and ardent admirer Ruggero. Magda, a metaphorical swallow, is torn between the life she needs and the life she knows.

Puccini’s exquisite score is warm and sensually delicate. It vividly shapes the characters and choruses, evoking the beguiling essence of Parisian life. La Rondine navigates a spectrum of emotions from the gaiety of the City of Love, the bittersweet sorrow of regret, and the sensuality of young love.

Puccini’s late masterpiece, brimming with themes of youth, passion and heartbreak, will rekindle your understanding of what it truly means to be alive and in love.

PRESENTED BY OPERA AUSTRALIA

A star-studded celebration of some of opera’s most moving music.

Italian composer Giacomo Puccini was opera’s defining force at the turn of the 20th century. His operas reach deep into your soul and transform you through their humanity and beautiful music.

And they’re still amongst the most-performed today: La Bohème, Turandot, Tosca and Madama Butterfly.

No other composer captures the rush of true love, the thrill of discovering something new, or the force of tragedy like Puccini.

2024 marks the centenary of the great composer’s passing. To celebrate his contribution to opera, we’re performing a concert of his finest music.

Homegrown superstar Nicole Car and one of the world’s most popular tenors, Joseph Calleja, are joined by a fabulous cast of singers, including Peter Coleman-Wright AO and Julie Lea Goodwin.

Swoon to the arias and duets you know and love, alongside lesser-known gems from his extraordinary operas, performed by some of our greatest singers along with the extraordinary Orchestra Victoria.

PRESENTED BY MUSICA VIVA AUSTRALIA

Every year on Christmas Eve listeners around the world tune in to hear The Choir of King’s College, Cambridge celebrate the Festival of Nine Lessons and Carols in a glorious display of the British choral tradition. Now this unique and precious sound returns to Australia. 

The Choir will perform soaring anthems and sacred works alongside two touchstones of the choral repertoire: Stravinsky’s Mass for choir and double wind quintet (ten of Australia’s best instrumentalists); and Maurice Duruflé’s magnificent Requiem, a radiant meditation on life and death for choir and organ. 

It’s not all top hats and heavenly voices: just as boys grow up and voices change, the Choir’s work evolves across the generations. Which is why Daniel Hyde, Director since 2019, asked us what The Choir of King’s College, Cambridge might learn from us. Integral to their performance is a new work commissioned from Australian composer Damian Barbeler, working with a text by Judith Nangala Crispin (a descendant of the Bpangerang people), which weaves a new tapestry from the threads of history.

Program 1: Sydney (Sydney Opera House), Perth (Perth Concert Hall), Brisbane (QPAC), Adelaide (Adelaide Town Hall)

HANDEL Zadok the Priest 
BAINTON And I saw a new Heaven 
DURUFLÉ Requiem, Op. 9 
Damian BARBELER (music) & Judith Nangala CRISPIN (poem) Charlotte (2023)* 

OR 

Program 2: Sydney (City Recital Hall), Melbourne (Hamer Hall & Melbourne Recital Centre) Canberra (Llewellyn Hall)

GABRIELI O magnum mysterium 
BULL Almighty God, which by the leading of a star 
TALLIS Videte miraculum 
WEIR Vertue 
STRAVINSKY Mass 
Damian BARBELER (music) & Judith Nangala CRISPIN (poem) Charlotte (2023)* 

*World premiere performances. Commissioned for Musica Viva Australia by Richard Wilkins. 

Concert Duration: The concert has an approximate duration of 105 minutes (including interval).

PRESENTED BY OPERA AUSTRALIA

Before Eurovision, there was the Wartburg Song Contest. Eurovision could only wish for this much drama!

Imagine basking in the adoration of Venus herself. Our minstrel-knight Tannhäuser has found a paradise of passion and pleasure with the goddess of love and beauty. Life is perfect. Until, he gets bored – and homesick.

Venus banishes him. Much to the joy of his friends and former love Elisabeth, Tannhäuser finds himself in Wartburg and enters the upcoming song contest. Only, he is unable to forget the sensuous realm of Venusberg, and praises Venus in song. Horrified, the crowd turns on him, insisting he atone for his sins with a pilgrimage. Elisabeth prays for his soul as Tannhäuser seeks salvation in Rome. Will he be absolved, or are Venus’ charms impossible to resist?

Understatement was never in Wagner’s vocabulary. His works are epic in scale, mythical of storyline, and radical in their orchestration. Tannhäuser is no exception.

From its thrilling overture to its shattering climax, Wagner’s exploration of love, religion and redemption through German folklore has fascinated and entranced audiences since its scandalous premiere.

Presented in concert at Arts Centre Melbourne, Wagner’s magnificent orchestrations are conducted by Johannes Fritzsch and gloriously played by Orchestra Victoria. Featuring our own “Pilgrim’s Chorus”, the Opera Australia Chorus, this is ‘Romantic grand opera’ at its legendary best.

PRESENTED BY THE AUSTRALIAN BALLET

In a creative feat that will see ballet transposed from screen to stage, Don Quixote recreates Rudolf Nureyev and Robert Helpmann’s 1973 film in a wildly colourful, palpably textured stage spectacle. A tribute to the legacy of the legendary Russian dancer and director who was a guest of The Australian Ballet in the early 1970s, this production resembles a painting come to life, enriched by a Spanish-flavoured score by veteran 19th-century ballet composer Ludwig Minkus, and vibrant costumes and sets that immerse audiences in a sultry experience of classical ballet.

Don Quixote moves from a rowdy Barcelona port to the ethereal happenings of the Don’s dream, to the candle-lit finery of the wedding celebration. A spirited ballet bursting with humour, the story follows the barber Basilio, who wins the hand of his girlfriend Kitri with the help of the visionary knight.

No detail is left unexplored in this rendition of Don Quixote. Emphasising the integral role of the set in evoking the film’s seductive atmosphere, the stage brims with everything from flowers to candles, evoking the bustling streets of Spain.

From the ballet’s spectacular lifts in Act I, to rousing ensemble scenes and a glittering confection of tutus, Don Quixote is a multi-sensory feast that reminds us of ballet’s power in the historical creative canon.

The re-design and restoration of Don Quixote has been funded by The David Hallberg Fund, with support from The Barry Kay Fund.

PRESENTED BY TEG VAN EGMOND

TEG Van Egmond is thrilled to announce one of the world’s greatest classical stars, esteemed Italian tenor Andrea Bocelli, will return to Australian stages with the 70-piece Royal Melbourne Philharmonic Orchestra and 75-voice Royal Melbourne Philharmonic Choir, this October/November for a 5-city national tour.

Drawing from his extensive back catalogue – which spans almost 3 decades – Andrea Bocelli is set to uplift Australian audiences with a stunning selection of soul-stirring arias, enduring love songs, and beloved crossover hits, conducted by his lifelong friend and musical collaborator, maestro Carlo Bernini.

Of his upcoming Australian tour, which is bound to be one for the history books, Bocelli says, “It will be like finally being able to hug many friends I hadn’t seen in a long time. The magic of a packed auditorium is incomparable.”

Secure your tickets early to avoid disappointment and then prepare for standing ovations galore. You don’t want to miss this voice of an angel in full flight.

PRESENTED BY THE AUSTRALIAN BALLET

In the history of dance, there are only a handful of productions that translate Shakespeare’s story of tragic love into compelling ballet form. John Cranko’s majestic version is one of them. His Romeo and Juliet premiered in 1962, the year The Australian Ballet was founded, and generations of our dancers have grown up with the production and gone on to shine in its many dream roles.

An artist who effortlessly fused dance and drama, Cranko richly evokes the grandeur of the Capulets’ ball, the fierce clashes of the rival families and the brief, luminous flare of young love. His choreography seems to flow spontaneously out of Sergei Prokofiev’s score, which has proven itself as immortal as Shakespeare’s play. As clearly as words could, the music lays out the progress of the story, evoking swordplay, ecstasy, murder and the looming approach of the lovers’ fate.

Jürgen Rose’s dramatically resonant design captures the pageantry of medieval Verona, contrasting the heavy splendour of the aristocratic elder generation with the billowing fabrics of the young lovers’ carefree abandon.

Cranko’s Romeo and Juliet binds artists and audiences in a profound emotional experience that will linger long after the curtain falls.

PRESENTED BY THE AUSTRALIAN BALLET

Our cities are reopening, and colour and brightness are returning to our lives. Celebration Gala features grand classical showpieces, thrilling contemporary excerpts, perennial favourites and more.

After our dancers performed a five-star (Limelight Magazine) Sydney season, our Celebration Gala comes to Melbourne, where the whole company brings you a taste of what you missed this year including pieces from New York Dialects (George Balanchine’s Serenade and an excerpt from Pam Tanowitz’s Watermark) and Counterpointe (an excerpt from William Forsythe’s Artifact Suite). 

SERENADE 
Excerpt from ARTIFACT SUITE 
Black Swan Pas de deux from SWAN LAKE  
Pas de deux from THE MERRY WIDOW 
Excerpt from WATERMARK  
LA FAVORITA  
Pas de deux from CHROMA  
Dance of the Snow Fairies from Act I of THE NUTCRACKER  

It’s an exhilarating celebration of our artists’ talent and commitment, the many facets of ballet, and our joy in being able to dance for you again. What better way to kick off the festive season?  

The orchestra is tuning up. The curtain is rising. 

PRESENTED BY MELBOURNE OPERA

Following the sellout February success of Das Rheingold at the Regent Theatre, Melbourne Opera is thrilled to be returning to the magnificent Her Majesty’s Theatre for this brand new production.

Featuring a magnificent cast starring Helena Dix (Norma, Roberto Devereux, Lohengrin), Simon Meadows (Das Rheingold), Samuel Sakker (Norma), Eddie Muliaumaseali’i, Adrian Tamburini, Robert Macfarlane, Michael Dimovski, Eleanor Greenwood, and Alex Pokryshevsky. Including the 60-strong Melbourne Opera Chorus.

Greg Hocking and Raymond Lawrence will conduct the acclaimed MO Orchestra and Academy Award winning director Bruce Beresford will bring this exciting masterpiece to life.

Macbeth is a famous vehicle for a star soprano and baritone, is packed with wonderful arias, choruses and magnificent ensembles and was one of Verdi’s greatest early successes. It’s a masterpiece to which he returned later in life and it is his superb later revised version which MO will present.

Principal Sponsor: Lady Potter AC and Dr Alastair Jackson AM.

PRESENTED BY MELBOURNE CONSERVATORIUM OF MUSIC

Featuring the next generation of Australia’s emerging opera performers, Master of Music (Opera Performance) students from the Melbourne Conservatorium of Music present Puccini’s Suor Angelica and Gianni Schicchi.

In the first, Sister Angelica is a young noblewoman who has been forced to become a nun by her family after having had a child out of wedlock. Gianni Schicchi, from Dante’s Inferno, hilariously swindles the members of the wealthy Donati family to provide a dowry for his daughter, who is engaged to a Donati family member.

Working with guest director Andrew Sinclair (Covent Garden) and mentor singer Conal Coad, these two one-act operas explore familial love, involving hopeful tragedy and uproarious comedy all in one evening.