Sydney Festival brings two innovative, site-specific performances to the harbour. An underrated tale of adultery and murder set on a Parisian barge, Il tabarro is the first part of Puccini’s Il trittico. Constantine Costi – never short of an idea – updates the action to Depression-era Sydney, staging it on The Carpentaria, a historic lightship built in 1917. Tickets are free, and there’s a livestream on Friday 12 January. (See page 81.) Night Songs at Coney Island is an exploration of childhood and lost innocence that travels across the harbour to Sydney’s iconic Luna Park. Sydney Philharmonia Choirs are joined by Peter Coleman-Wright and Cheryl Barker plus a chamber orchestra and children’s ensemble in Poulenc’s Sextet, Stravinsky’s Mass and Mahler’s poignant Kindertotenlieder.

Limelight Editor’s Choice

A deeply moving work in an iconic Sydney location. This immersive choral music experience takes over Coney Island, featuring artists from the Sydney Philharmonia Choirs, vocal soloists Peter Coleman Wright AO and Cheryl Barker AO, a children’s ensemble, and chamber orchestra performing music by Poulenc, Stravinsky and Mahler — capturing the darkness and light.

Coney Island’s amusement hall has been a childhood escape from reality for almost a century, with rotating barrels, giant slides and funhouse mirrors.

This playground setting comes to life with Poulenc’s buoyant and jubilant Sextet for Piano and Winds, before the shadow of grief and loss takes over, set against a community’s lament for atonement sung to Stravinsky’s Mass. Woven throughout the evening is Mahler’s hauntingly personal Kindertotenlieder (Songs on the Death of Children), performed by Coleman-Wright and Barker.

Night Songs at Coney Island observes innocent children on the ride of their life. This is an evocative experience like no other, reflecting on innocence lost during times of conflict and greed.