Opera Australia Announces 2025 Season

Opera Australia strengthens commitment to Australian talent with their 2025 season announcement this year.

Opera Australia (OA) has announced its eagerly awaited 2025 season, comprising a line-up of spectacular productions that demonstrate the Company’s ongoing commitment to broadening its repertoire and audience base and showcasing exceptional Australian talent both on and off the stage.

Cendrillon (Cinderella) at Royal Opera House 2011. Photo Credit: Bill Cooper.

Opera Australia continues forward with its mission to ensure a sustainable future for the company by extending opportunities for Australian artists and creating new pathways for the next generation of opera singers, musicians and creatives, including the introduction of a renewed Young Artist Program. 

Opera Australia’s CEO, Fiona Allan, thanked OA’s former Artistic Director, Jo Davies, for her dedication and hard work in delivering the 2025 program.

“We’re very excited about the 2025 season, it’s a great representation of the breadth and depth of the operatic canon and includes some of the finest operas ever written, to be brought to life by the finest Australian talent,” Ms Allan said.

Opera Australia’s Head of Music, Tahu Matheson, worked closely with Ms Davies to create the 2025 season.

Melbourne:

The 2025 Melbourne program sees Opera Australia’s return to a traditional theatre setting to present three fully staged yet diverse operas that includes a brand-new production of Bizet’sCarmen directed by Melbourne Theatre Company (MTC) Artistic Director Anne-Louise Sarks, Rossini’sThe Barber of Seville, and Gluck’sOrpheus & Eurydice. Additionally, building on the success of this year’s Puccini Gala, audiences will be treated to a similarly staged Verdi Gala in Hamer Hall featuring Nicole Car and Étienne Dupuis.

Photo credit: Opera Australia

For musical lovers, the Tony and Grammy Award-winning smash hit Hadestown will have its Melbourne premiere at Her Majesty’s Theatre in May. Taking Broadway and the West End by storm, winning eight Tony Awards including Best Musical and described by the Guardian UK as “Big, beautiful and emotionally blasting,” Hadestown has now been seen by three million people and streamed by more than 350 million.

THE BARBER OF SEVILLE – Rossini: Regent Theatre, 31 October – 5 November

CARMEN – Bizet: Regent Theatre, 15 – 25 November

ORPHEUS & EURYDICE – Gluck: Regent Theatre, 2 – 5 December

BMW Opera For All: Fed Square, 1 February

VERDI GALA: Hamer Hall, 30 April + 3 May

HADESTOWN – Mitchell: Her Majesty’s Theatre, from 8 May

LA BOHÈME – Puccini: 7 July – 14 September

Sydney:

Featuring five Sydney Opera House premieres, the 2025 Sydney Season begins with a joyous and vibrant opera production of Cinderella, (Cendrillon) presented in association with Sydney Festival. Sung in English, this is the first time Opera Australia has performed this opera and Laurent Pelly’s production is a feast for the senses. The brilliant cast includes four of Australia’s finest singers, Emily Edmonds, Emma Matthews, Sian Sharp and Margaret Plummer, who is returning to debut with Opera Australia after achieving international success.

Lyndon Watts in Victorian Opera’s Candide 2024. Photo Credit Charlie Kinross.

Musical fans will be spoilt for choice in Sydney with the Broadway and West End smash hit Hadestown opening at the Theatre Royal in February, a brand-new production of Guys & Dolls on Sydney Harbour in March/April, and Shaun Rennie’s production of Rent debuting in the Joan Sutherland Theatre in September.

CINDERELLA (CENDRILLON) – Massenet: Sydney Opera House, 2 January – 28 March and New Year’s Eve performance on 31 December 2024

THE BARBER OF SEVILLE – Rossini: Sydney Opera House, 18 January – 28 February

LA TRAVIATA – Verdi: Sydney Opera House, 23 January – 27 March

OPERA UP LATE: Sydney Opera House, 30 January

CANDIDE – Bernstein: Sydney Opera House, 20 February – 14 March

DIDO & AENEAS – Purcell: Sydney Opera House, 13 – 29 March

GUYS & DOLLS – Loesser: Fleet Steps, Mrs Macquaries Point, 21 March – 20 April

GREAT OPERA HITS: Sydney Opera House, dates across the Summer and Winter seasons

CARMEN – Bizet: Sydney Opera House, 10 July – 19 September

West Australian Opera’s 2024 production of Rusalka. Photo Credit: West Beach Studio.

RUSALKA – Dvořáka: Sydney Opera House, 19 July – 11 August

THE MARRIAGE OF FIGARO – Mozart: Sydney Opera House, 31 July – 27 August

LA BOHÈME – Puccini: Sydney Opera House, 23 August – 20 September

HADESTOWN – Mitchell: Sydney Opera House, from 26 September

Fans everywhere can find more information and tickets for both Melbourne and Sydney here.

Featured image: Opera Australia Chorus and Circa in Opera Australia’s 2024 production of Orpheus & Eurydice. Credit Keith Saunders.

All photos provided by Opera Australia.

Drew Janine

Live Sound Engineer -EUROPE

Janine has always been a part of music and performing. The first show that inspired her to go into theatre was the Velveteen Rabbit which she saw as a child, and Drew works to keep that magic alive as working behind the scenes in theatre as a live sound engineer. When Drew was accepted into an internship program for audio engineering at a recording studio, she jumped at the opportunity. That was at the start of 2020 and so much has happened since then, both in her career and in the world. Since then, Drew has taken several opportunities to work at recording studios, concerts, festivals, and even large theatres while spending time on tour across the North American continent and Europe. Drew’s favourite by far though has been the chance to work on Broadway and West End shows, as this was a dream come true. Drew is honoured to get to share these experiences from being inside the entertainment industry and hopes to inspire others to continue working in theatre.

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