Opera Australia

Opera Australia — the country’s flagship opera company

Opera Australia is the largest performing arts company in the country by audience and budget, and the only major opera company that splits a year-round season across two cities. Sydney is the headquarters, with the Joan Sutherland Theatre at the Sydney Opera House as the main mainstage and the larger Lyric Theatre at the ICC Sydney occasionally borrowed for blockbuster productions and the touring musicals season. Melbourne gets a winter and a spring run each year at the State Theatre, Arts Centre Melbourne. The headline asset of the calendar is Handa Opera on Sydney Harbour, the company’s outdoor production on Mrs Macquaries Point each March and April, which has become the largest single-event arts ticket in Australia.

What they’re known for

Opera Australia is — by design — the broadest-church opera company in the country. The mainstage programme will typically run three or four core repertory titles a year (a Verdi, a Mozart, a Puccini), one rarer canonical work, one contemporary or twentieth-century revival, and one new commission. The Handa Opera on Sydney Harbour does one big crowd-pleaser per year — recent runs have included Aida, La Traviata, Madama Butterfly and West Side Story. The company also runs a substantial touring musicals slate (The Phantom of the Opera, My Fair Lady, The Merry Widow) which subsidises the mainstage opera.

If you’ve never seen an opera, the entry-point question is: do you want grand or do you want intimate? For grand — the Handa on the harbour, the Verdi requiem at the Opera House, the centenary Aida. For intimate — the Mozart in the Joan Sutherland Theatre, where the room is small enough to feel the breath. Margaret has been pushing first-time attendees at Le nozze di Figaro for a decade and not had one regret.

Home venues

• Sydney Opera House — Joan Sutherland Theatre — the main Sydney mainstage. 1,500 seats; acoustically tight and visually spectacular. Recently re-engineered.
• Arts Centre Melbourne — State Theatre — Melbourne mainstage. 2,000 seats; better sightlines but bigger room.
• Mrs Macquaries Point, Sydney Harbour — the Handa Opera site. Temporary 3,000-seat arena built each March; seats face the Opera House across the water.
• Lyric Theatre, ICC Sydney — used for touring musicals and the occasional opera blockbuster.

The season pattern — and how to book

Opera Australia announces its full annual season in mid-July (the next-year season is launched at a Sydney media event the third week of July, every year). Subscriptions open immediately. Single tickets typically go on sale in late September. The Handa on the Harbour is announced separately, usually March–April for the following year, with single tickets around June.

For Handa specifically: don’t wait. The first-tier seats sell out within forty-eight hours of single-ticket release. The “premium” night-of-fireworks performances (every Saturday) sell out faster. If you’re flying in for Handa, lock the date with subscription tickets in July when they’re announced; you can change night-of within the season.

Planning a trip

The Sydney Opera House is the easy planning case — you can do it as a long weekend from anywhere on the east coast. Stay in The Rocks or Circular Quay, walk across to the Opera House for a 7.30pm curtain, eat at Bennelong before or Aria after. Melbourne State Theatre runs are typically two to three weeks; pair with a stay in Southbank or East Melbourne.

Handa on the Harbour is a different planning case. The performance is open-air and the post-show fireworks (Saturdays) are part of the pitch. We’d budget twelve hours: late afternoon at Mrs Macquaries Chair to watch the harbour, on-site dining (the company runs three restaurants under canvas next to the arena), the show at 8pm, the fireworks at the curtain. Stay anywhere with a harbour view.

Tour reach beyond the capitals

Opera Australia’s touring musicals slate reaches Brisbane (QPAC), Adelaide (Adelaide Festival Centre), Perth (Crown Theatre or Burswood), and occasionally Auckland. The mainstage opera rarely tours regionally — the production scale is wrong for it. For regional opera the company to watch is State Opera South Australia.

Useful links

• Official: opera.org.au
• Where we cover them: Companies and Seasons
• The venue guides: Sydney Opera House, Arts Centre Melbourne