11 showstopping moments from Handa Opera on Sydney Harbour
Handa Opera on Sydney Harbour: a live performance event unlike any other, with a pop-up outdoor theatre for 3,000 people, an enormous stage over the water, a backdrop featuring the Sydney Opera House and Harbour Bridge, and an awe-inspiring fireworks display at every single show.
Here are the moments we’ll never forget from the stage of Handa Opera on Sydney Harbour.
1. Soprano swings from the chandelier
La Traviata's ‘Sempre libera’ is always a show-stopping tune, with the singer playing Violetta soaring to stratospheric vocal heights. But this time, the singing was matched by the staging: the soprano performed the aria from a special platform swinging beneath a nine-metre chandelier.
2. Opera's most famous drinking song goes off with a bang
There is no shortage of boozy tunes designed to get the party started in opera, and there’s none more famous than the Brindisi from La Traviata. This song comes right at the start of the opera and takes place at a fabulously glamorous party. And what's a party without fireworks lighting up the night sky?
3. A sizzling Spanish tavern
Dancers stomped, clapped and spun their way across the harbour stage with ferocious energy in Carmen in 2013. Choreographed by Kelley Abbey, the Broadway-style song and dance numbers were brilliantly seductive and set the mood for a warm Sydney night.
4. Singing to the heavens — 10 metres above the stage
Sometimes the most spectacular moments in opera happen when the action slows and we zoom in on one character, singing their heart out. In our production of Carmen, the young village girl Micaëla performed the gorgeous ‘Je dis que rien ne m'épouvante’ from atop a shipping container suspended over the stage.
5. The sun rises over Sydney Harbour
Our production of Madama Butterfly, created by revolutionary Spanish theatre company La Fura dels Baus, featured an enormous 12-metre inflatable glowing orb — the morning sun, rising across the harbour — and a massive glowing moon.
6. Aida, under her eye
Verdi’s Aida is a massive opera and calls for massive ideas. The centrepiece of the set for our 2015 staging was a 15-tonne, 18-metre tall sculpture of the head of the Egyptian queen Nefertiti. In the final act, the singer playing Amneris sang from the hollowed out structure, staring out from an open eye, several storeys in the air.
7. A Triumphal March to remember
The Triumphal March in Aida, performed as the Egyptian army return from victory over Ethiopia, is one of opera's biggest moments. For our production, director Gale Edwards captured the excess of the victory (and the devastation wrought by war upon the losing party) with a golden, glittering extravaganza. Complete with dancers, real camels and enough sequins to cover half the floats at Mardi Gras.
8. The dragon roars
An enormous 60-metre dragon sculpture wrapped around the stage for our 2016 production of Turandot. And, as any good dragon should, it ferociously breathed fire, making its presence in the harbour city known.
9. The ice princess's tower
The title character in Turandot is an ice princess whose heart, it seems, will never thaw. In our production, she performed from a moving platform at the top of an 18-metre pagoda-style tower, constructed from 12 tonnes of steel and aluminium.
10. Snow falls over Sydney
For our 2018 production of La Bohème, we brought a touch of Parisian winter to the harbour. Our stage was covered in cobblestone streets, and snow romantically fluttered across the whole site (even across the audience) as Rodolfo and Mimì fell dangerously in love.
11. Broadway's most spectacular dance
In 2019, we performed our first musical on the harbour, West Side Story. Seeing dance legend Jerome Robbins’ original choreography performed by a huge cast across the outdoor stage was utterly thrilling, with Brian Thomson’s set bringing the streets of Manhattan to life with an enormous overpass and full-sized subway cars zooming across the stage.
West Side Story on Sydney Harbour
Fleet Steps, Mrs Macquaries Point, Sydney
22 March–21 April 2024
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