Jonathan Dove’s Flight is that rara avis: a contemporary opera that has audiences in stitches. A successful world premiere by Glyndebourne Touring Opera in 1998 led to a season at the festival the next year followed by more than 40 productions and counting. When Stephen Barlow’s powerful, poignant staging – first seen at Scottish Opera in 2018 – lands at State Opera South Australia, it won’t be the first time the work has been seen here – an Adelaide Festival outing of Richard Jones’ original Glyndebourne production won the Helpmann Award for Best Opera in 2006. As modern operas go, only John Adams’ Nixon in China rivals it for popularity.

“I feel incredibly lucky and thrilled that something [librettist] April [De Angelis] and I just imagined as an opera we would like to go to, has sparked the imaginations of so many different people and in such different ways,” smiles Dove, chatting over Zoom from his music room in London’s Shoreditch.

A scene from the Scottish Opera’s 2018 production of Flight. Photo © James Glossop

“Every production I see, there’s always something I’ve never...