Now in its fourth consecutive year, Opera Queensland’s Festival of Outback Opera is set to dazzle audiences again with its unique combination of fine music, endless sunsets and expansive, awe-inspiring scenery.

It is centred around two outdoor concerts at the Australian Age of Dinosaurs, which sits atop a 74-metre-tall mesa overlooking Winton, and Camden Park Station, an 18,000-acre cattle farm in Longreach.

Opera Queensland’s Festival of Outback Opera 2023. Photo © Glenn Hunt

This year’s lineup includes singer/songwriter Kate Miller-Heidke, who is making her festival debut alongside soprano Rachelle Durkin and tenor Rosario La Spina.

Born in Charleville, Miller-Heidke is familiar with the expansiveness of Queensland’s Outback which she says, “creates that sense of timelessness and being small”. Although she has performed in Winton once many years ago, she hasn’t as yet had the chance in Longreach and is eager to connect with audiences “out there”.

It is a sentiment echoed by Durkin who returned to Australia during the pandemic after several years as a soloist with the Metropolitan Opera in New York.

She tells Limelight, “The experience of performing in front of an...