After years of financial turbulence and leadership instability, Opera Australia has unveiled its 2027 season — a programme designed to signal renewed ambition and institutional steadiness, with productions spanning Wagner's grandest work, a steampunk reimagining of Mozart and two major Australian operas across Sydney and Melbourne.
The announcement marks the first season shaped under incoming director of opera Amy Lane, who is currently completing her tenure as artistic director of the Copenhagen Opera Festival before joining Opera Australia full-time. She is part of a revamped leadership trio alongside chief executive Alex Budd and music director Andrea Battistoni — a clean break from what insiders have described as a revolving-door period of management upheaval.
"It does feel strangely like, after a slightly bumpy period, that the ground is kind of fertile for us to go, 'OK, what are we planting and what are we going to see in our five-year round?'" Lane said.
Tannhäuser Takes Centre Stage — But Not in Sydney
The headline production of the 2027 season is a new staging of Wagner's Tannhäuser, directed by celebrated Scottish director David McVicar. In a significant logistical decision, the opera will be performed at Melbourne's State Theatre rather than the Sydney Opera House. The reason is straightforward: Wagner's score demands an orchestra too large for the pit at the Opera House's Joan Sutherland Theatre, and the composer's famously massive offstage brass ensemble makes the venue impractical for the work.
The choice will be welcomed by Melbourne audiences, who have had limited opera programming over the past three years while the State Theatre was closed for renovations. Opera Australia is hoping the production will also draw Sydney patrons willing to make the trip south.
Lane was emphatic about the strength of McVicar's concept. "His take on it is so extraordinary," she said. "Only David's mind could work in this brilliant way to find a pathway through this piece to make it enticing, not just for those who love Wagner, but for those who want to be in the theatre." She described early conversations with the director about his vision as "exhilarating".
Sydney Gets Mozart, Puccini, Poulenc and a Touch of Gilbert and Sullivan
Sydney's season opens with the local premiere of Puccini's La Bohème, which will have its world premiere in Melbourne in November before heading north. Audiences will also see a return of Simon Phillips' production of Donizetti's The Elixir of Love, complete with colloquially Australian surtitles that have proven a crowd-pleaser in previous seasons.
One of the more intriguing offerings is a double-bill of one-act French works. Ravel's L'enfant et les sortilèges will feature acclaimed Australian mezzo-soprano Margaret Plummer, while Poulenc's La Voix humaine — a one-woman opera centred on a woman's final telephone conversation with an unfaithful lover — promises something far more emotionally raw.
"You hear her side of the conversation as we as an audience have to imagine what she is hearing," Lane said. "It is painfully intimate and so vulnerable."
Sydney's winter slate includes a return of McVicar's lush production of Faust, Stuart Maunder's comedic Pirates of Penzance — marking the return of Gilbert and Sullivan to the Sydney Opera House — and a Sydney premiere of Verdi's A Masked Ball.
A Steampunk Flute and Australian Stories for Both Cities
Continuing its effort to attract younger audiences and families, Opera Australia will present the Australian premiere of Scottish Opera's widely praised steampunk production of The Magic Flute in Sydney. Planning and program director Ruth Thomas said the company was deliberately building a pipeline of family-friendly programming.
"We're trying to program family operas and build on that," she said. "We had Hansel and Gretel earlier this year and last year we had Cendrillon so we want to try and keep that going."
The Magic Flute will also travel to Melbourne, where it joins Ann Yee's production of Turandot and — in one of the season's most culturally resonant offerings — Leah Purcell's The Drover's Wife, adapted from Purcell's acclaimed stage work with a score by composer George Palmer. The inclusion of two major Australian operas in the 2027 programme underscores the company's stated commitment to homegrown work alongside the European canon.
What the 2027 Season Means for Opera Australia's Future
The breadth of the 2027 programme — stretching from Wagner's most demanding scores to accessible family productions, from beloved Puccini to contemporary Australian drama — reflects a company trying to be many things to many audiences while re-establishing its credibility after a difficult period.
Lane's arrival, combined with a stabilised executive structure, gives the organisation its best chance in years to pursue a coherent artistic identity. Whether the ambition translates into box-office recovery and critical success will become clearer as casting and scheduling details emerge in the months ahead. For now, the 2027 announcement reads as Opera Australia's most confident statement of intent in some time.
