Faramondo, the headline act of the inaugural year of Leo Schofield’s Queensland festival wins five bobbys.

Brisbane Baroque’s production of Farramondo, Cameron Mackintosh’s Les Misérables, and Opera Australia, West Australia Opera and Barking Gecko’s The Rabbits were the big winners at last night’s Helpmann awards, which took place at Sydney’s Capitol Theatre.

The 15th annual event celebrating the performing arts in Australia saw Leo Schofield’s Brisbane Baroque production of Handel’s Faramondo storm the opera awards with five gongs, including the ‘bobbys’ for Best Direction of an Opera (Paul Curran), Best Supporting Female in an Opera (Anna Devin), Best Supporting Male in an Opera (Christopher Lowrey), Best Female in an Opera (Jennifer Rivera) and the opera category’s most prestigious prize, the Best Opera Award. Opera Australia, which secured the highest number of nominations of the 2015 Awards with 27 nods, secured just one award in the opera categories; Best Male in an Opera for Michael Fabiano’s performance in Faust. The overwhelming success of Farramondo was a moment of vindication for Schofield, who was forced to relocate his Baroque Festival from Hobart to Brisbane last year after the Tasmanian Government refused requests for increased funding to expand the programme.