There’s nothing that can prepare you for an opening night curtain call of a Handa Opera on Sydney Harbour.

Nina Korbe, who plays Maria in Opera Australia’s glowingly reviewed revival production of West Side Story, is still buzzing, four days later.

“It was surreal, that’s the only word I really have for it,” she tells Limelight. “You’re in quite a vulnerable state at the end of the show when you’re playing Maria – that last monologue! – and so I was expecting it to be a little bit tricky to come down to ground level. But being there in front of all those people, with the people who had made all this, was incredibly special.”

Billy Bourchier, Tony to Korbe’s Maria, agrees. “It’s one of those things you kind of dream about doing as a musical theatre performer. But to be doing it as a leading man … seriously, you don’t allow yourself to be that optimistic most of the time.”

Both Brisbane-based, neither Korbe nor Bourchier had even seen an Opera on Sydney Harbour production prior to...