The Australian Ballet's Adam Elmes. Photo © Pierre Toussaint

Let’s start on an optimistic note. While many arts companies are still struggling to rebuild audiences and pay the bills – more on that later – there is much to look forward to in 2025 in opera and dance.

Forget that trip to Europe. Stay here and whizz around Australia to catch this tip-top baker’s dozen of shows. Some are there because they’re known quantities to be enjoyed again, some have a surprise factor and others are new. There’s a mix of the fully imported, the imported with significant local input, local productions of international works and fully homegrown work. In other words, business as usual.

Binding it all together are the skill and will of our creative artists, soldiering on in what we now know to...