Every year around this time, my inbox fills with glossy PDFs announcing festival seasons. Gorgeous photography, breathless copy about “unmissable” performances, and ticket prices that make your eyes water. Not all of it deserves your money or your weekend.

So here’s my honest guide to the Australian opera festival circuit in 2026. I’ve attended most of these, sung in a few, and have strong opinions about all of them.

The Big Three

Opera Australia’s Winter Season (Sydney, June-August)

Opera Australia’s winter season at the Joan Sutherland Theatre remains the anchor of the calendar. This year’s programming is a mixed bag. The new Tosca has a director I trust, and they’re reviving their well-received 2023 Eugene Onegin, which is worth seeing if you missed it.

The wildcard is their new commission, The Inland Sea, a chamber opera about the Burke and Wills expedition. Australian subject matter, contemporary score, small cast. OA’s track record with Australian works has improved since they stopped treating them as box-ticking exercises.

Verdict: The Tosca and the new commission are worth prioritising. Skip the gala.

Melbourne Opera Festival (March-April)

Victorian Opera and Melbourne Opera both programme around the same window, creating an informal festival atmosphere across the city. Victorian Opera is mounting Dialogues of the Carmelites — a brave choice. Not an easy sell, but one of the most powerful works in the repertoire.

Melbourne Opera is doing Nabucco, which plays to their strengths. Big chorus, big tunes, straightforward drama.

Verdict: Dialogues is the must-see. Nabucco is the crowd-pleaser. Both are worth the trip.

Brisbane Festival Opera (September)

Opera Queensland usually programmes one or two productions within the broader Brisbane Festival. Last year’s outdoor Carmen at South Bank was genuinely wonderful — relaxed, atmospheric, packed with people who’d never set foot in a traditional opera house.

The 2026 offering hasn’t been fully announced, but early indications point to something site-specific in the Powerhouse precinct.

Verdict: Keep the dates free. OQ rarely disappoints in this slot.

The Regional Gems

This is where things get interesting, and where the best value sits in 2026.

Barossa Baroque Festival (South Australia, October)

If you’ve never been, stop what you’re doing and book flights now. The Barossa Baroque Festival is small, intimate, and absolutely world-class. They bring in international early music specialists and pair them with Australian singers in the wineries and churches of the Barossa Valley.

Last year’s performance of Monteverdi’s L’Orfeo in a stone chapel with thirty people in the audience was one of the most moving operatic experiences I’ve had in decades. No amplification, no supertitles, just voices in a room designed for singing centuries before anyone thought to call it a venue.

Verdict: Non-negotiable. Go.

West Australian Opera Festival (Perth, May)

West Australian Opera continues to punch above its weight. Their festival format — several smaller productions over a concentrated period — gives you variety without demanding three months of your calendar. This year includes a double bill of Puccini one-acts and an ambitious new Indigenous collaboration.

Perth is far. I know. But WAO consistently programmes with more courage than companies twice their size, and His Majesty’s Theatre is one of the most beautiful opera houses in the country.

Verdict: Worth the flight, especially for the Indigenous collaboration.

Tasmanian Opera Festival (Hobart, November)

Still finding its feet, but there’s something genuinely exciting happening in Hobart. The MONA effect has made Tasmania a place where people expect adventurous art, and the opera festival is leaning into that energy. Small-scale, contemporary-focused, programmed with real imagination.

Verdict: Highly recommended if you enjoy opera on the experimental end.

The Ones I’d Skip

The various gala-format “festival” events that pop up around the country — you know the ones, a soprano and a tenor in a winery with a piano, calling it a festival — are mostly not worth your time. They’re recitals with good wine, and the ticket prices suggest you’re getting considerably more than you are.

Similarly, the “opera under the stars” events that proliferate in summer are fine for a casual night out but shouldn’t be confused with serious opera-going. The amplification alone disqualifies them in my book. Opera is an acoustic art form. The moment you add a microphone, you’ve changed the fundamental contract between singer and listener.

How to Plan Your Year

If I had unlimited time and budget (I do not), I’d hit the Barossa Baroque in October, the Melbourne window in March, WAO in May, and the OA winter season in June. Four distinct experiences — early music, contemporary, adventurous programming, and traditional grand opera — across four cities.

If you’ve only got budget for one, make it the Barossa. Nothing else in this country offers that combination of intimacy, quality, and setting. You’ll drink extraordinary wine and hear extraordinary singing in extraordinary spaces.

If you need a major-city experience, the Victorian Opera Dialogues in Melbourne is my pick. A rare chance to see a masterpiece that doesn’t get programmed often enough, from a company that takes artistic risks seriously.

Whatever you choose, buy your tickets early. The regional festivals especially sell out faster than you’d expect. The audience for opera in this country is more engaged than the doom-merchants would have you believe. You just have to know where to find them.