Here's our round-up of new operas coming to Australia in 2025!
Luke di Somma & Constantine Costa
Sydney Festival
SYDNEY
The neon lights of Las Vegas are calling. The most talked about Australian debut of 2025 kicks off in January at Sydney Festival. This new work is brought to life by New York-trained composer and co-librettist Luke Di Somma (The Unruly Tourists) and maverick director and co-librettist Constantine Costi (Il Tabarro, Sydney Festival 2024), with costumes from Oscar-winning designer Tim Chappel (The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert). Featuring operatic favourites Kanen Breen and Christopher Tonkin, it promises to be utterly camp, and the promo video is the most exciting thing to happen to opera since Kanen pranced around in a neon green dress in Pinchgut's Plateé.
8 – 25 JAN
Elena Kats-Chernin
Sydney Festival
SYDNEY
Set against Elena Kats-Chernin’s haunting score, performed live by a chamber ensemble, Milestone is the life of a Chinese-Australian artist chronicling queer stories in Australia, from the early days of Sydney’s Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras to the HIV/AIDS epidemic of the 1980s and 90s. Above all, from his viewpoint as the last of his generation, Milestone is Yang contemplating the importance of family and the ties binding relations worldwide.Â
10 & 11 JAN
Victorian Opera
MELBOURNE
The fruits of a development programme with young singers Victorian Opera presents this new work for one performance.
One day, the Lyrebird’s trick of mimicry goes too far, and they face a harsh punishment: the Lyrebird is banished by the birds and cursed to mimic only what they hear. This coming-of-age story highlights the struggles of not fitting in and the power of friendship and understanding.
Friday 4 October
Kaija Saariaho
Adelaide Festival & State Opera South Australia
ADELAIDE
In modern-day Finland, a joyous wedding celebration takes a shocking turn when the darkest secrets are revealed and a young bride faces an impossible decision. Innocence comes to Adelaide Festival for its highly anticipated Australian Premiere following sell-out seasons at Festival d’Aix-en-Provence, Finnish National Opera, London’s Royal Opera House, Dutch National Opera and San Francisco Opera, and directly before its New York debut at the Metropolitan Opera.
28 Feb - 05 Mar
SYDNEY
In three inspiring programs, we will see a culmination of old and new with an exciting range of Australian composers throughout the year, including Joseph Twist, Paul Stanhope and Anne Crawse.
See https://the.song.company/ for more details
CANBERRA
Championing new ensemble works, Luminescence's 2025 program highlights new works from Nicole Murphy, Archie Tulk and Andrew Ford’s Red Dirt Hymns.
See https://www.luminescence.org.au/lcs for more details.
Fluxus has an exciting year of development coming up: we're continuing to work on Flash House (formerly Little Lon); our primary year's incursion program, Opera in a Day, is set to be officially launched; and the program we have been working on under the Australia Council Fellowship will be launched mid-2025.
We've also been working with Queerstories, with writer Teddy Dunn, composer Alex Turley and director Maeve Marsden collaborating with one of Melbourne’s most vibrant vocal ensembles Divisi Chamber with Compose Queer x Queerstories, developing work by emerging queer composers to tell stories in new ways.
The fruits of these commissions will be performed by this world-class ensemble in Melbourne.
February 6 – 9
Divisi Chamber, Composer Queer x Queerstories
As always, please get in touch about any recitals, productions, developments, or performances we should know. We will include them in future blog posts and on our Instagram. Next year, we will continue highlighting new Australian work in a quarterly blog post starting in March.
This blog is in no way sponsored by any of the companies mentioned* and is created by FLUXUS to celebrate contemporary Australian Opera.
*OPEN TO OFFERS
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