With a choir of 400 voices, four soloists backed by nine featured vocalists and an orchestra of 60 musicians, it doesn’t get much bigger – or more magnificent – than a one-off performance of Felix Mendelssohn’s swansong masterpiece Elijah.

Over the course of two-and-a-half hours Sydney Philharmonia Choirs Artistic Director Brett Weymark piloted his massive forces like a latter-day Cecil B. DeMille through the calms and rapids of the oratorio about the Old Testament prophet who defies the false gods of Baal and ascends to heaven in a fiery chariot.

Teddy Tahu Rhodes: Elijah. Photo © Keith Saunders

The Festival Choir, ranged across the two flanking boxes and the stalls behind the orchestra, were superb in a performance which sometimes swept the audience away with its majestic choruses backed by a big brass section and the bone-shaking intensity of David Drury at the organ with all the stops pulled out.

It also marked the return of the popular Kiwi bass-baritone Teddy Tahu Rhodes to the Sydney Opera House stage. The title role is part of his musical DNA – he first performed it in Auckland in 2007 and most recently in Sydney in 2022 with the Willoughby Symphony – and his magisterial presence...