Happy New Year, I hope the break brought you good music and a little free time to enjoy it.

I had the good fortune to begin the year at the opening night of Turandot at the Sydney Opera House. It is a new production created by the Opera Conference: Opera Queensland, State Opera of South Australia, West Australian Opera, and Opera Australia. Ann Yee directs, with sets by Elizabeth Gadsby, who designed our beautiful Così fan tutte. I have seen many productions of Turandot over the years, and few have traced the title character’s trauma, and her hard-won redemption through love, as persuasively as this one.

We open our Brisbane season in a little over a month, and we are thrilled to welcome home former Young Artist Xenia Puskarz Thomas, first up in our Studio Series. Joined by her husband at the piano, Xenia will perform rarely heard French Baroque songs alongside Schumann’s Liederkreis. If you saw her Cherubino in our The Marriage of Figaro, you will know this is one not to be missed.

The following week, Jessica O’Donoghue, another former OQ Young Artist, will be joined by Jack Symonds, for our second recital. Jessica and Jack are two leading lights in contemporary Australian music, and their recital, undead, is a virtuosic celebration of Australian musical and literary voices.

In April, Brisbane Bel Canto returns. With Cyclone Alfred cancelling all but one performance last year, it is a great joy to finally share this program. Opening the festival is Rossini’s La Cenerentola, a work of exquisite comic timing, made all the more wonderful by Laura Hansford’s beautiful staging.

Alongside it, we present The Birth of Bel Canto with One Equal Music, Andrew Ford’s Red Dirt Hymns, and Rossini’s remarkable Petite Messe Solennelle which, despite its title, brings together more than one hundred performers for an evening of radiant sacred music.

In May we head out west for the Festival of Outback Opera. In keeping with our commitment to bringing musicians of the highest calibre to audiences wherever they may be, rising star Filipe Manu will put engagements at houses such as Covent Garden and the Paris Opera on hold to headline our gala concerts in Winton and Longreach.

Come June, our excitement will be close to breaking point in anticipation of our first production in QPAC’s sparkling new Glasshouse Theatre. To match the wonder of this new venue, we are presenting an extraordinary production of Dvořák’s Rusalka, directed by Sarah Giles, with Eleanor Lyons as the luminous water nymph.

If you happen to be in the UK in October, you will have the opportunity to see a new production of Tchaikovsky’s Eugene Onegin, which we are creating in collaboration with Opera North and Irish National Opera.

In November we return to Brisbane for our production with Queensland Theatre on Stephen Sondheim’s Into the Woods, which I have the great privilege of directing. I am thrilled that this production will travel to Toowoomba following its Brisbane premiere.

A year of fairy tales and song that reminds us that no matter how complex or confused our world may be, there is strength to be found in our shared humanity.

We look forward to welcoming you in 2026.

Warm regards,
Patrick Nolan
CEO & Artistic Director