State Opera South Australia is marking its 50th birthday by throwing open the doors of the art form it champions.

The company’s 2026 Golden Jubilee season is billed as “opera without borders,” a program that Artistic Director Dane Lam says must speak to the present and imagine the future while honouring the legacy that put Adelaide on the global operatic map. 

Lam’s vision foregrounds both artistic ambition and community connection. The program features four new mainstage productions, alongside initiatives designed to nurture the next generation of artists and audiences.

Says Lam: “Anniversaries are not just about the past. They are about asking what opera should mean for the next 50 years … Opera survives only when it speaks to the present and dares to imagine the future.” 

Dane Lamat  Her Majesty’s Theatre, Adelaide. Portrait © Matt Turner

The anniversary celebrations begin with scale and spectacle rarely seen in this country. Franco Zeffirelli’s monumental Arena di Verona staging of Aida makes its historic international debut at Adelaide Oval on February 5 and 6, with more than 600 performers including Jonas Kaufmann and Angel Blue. The event is exclusive to Adelaide. 

Elsewhere the season draws deep on fairy-tale lore and its ability to speak across generations. Rossini’s La Cenerentola arrives in May with a playful 1970s twist from director Neil Armfield and designer Stephen Curtis, starring audience favourite Anna Dowsley as Angelina. 

On 15 May, Dowsley joins Helena Dix in a concert performance of Bellini’s Norma conducted by NZ Opera’s Brad Cohen. The cast includes Rosario La Spina, Teddy Tahu Rhodes and Lucy Stoddart.

In August, Constantine Costi directs both a darkly reimagined Hansel and Gretel and Sondheim and Lapine’s Into the Woods. In the former, international countertenor Kangmin Justin Kim joins Sofia Troncoso and Catherine Carby as Humperdinck’s lush Wagnerian score stirs danger and desire in the woods. In the latter, Hugh Sheridan returns home to join an all-South Australian cast in a tale that asks what really happens after “happily ever after.” 

The Arena di Verona production of Aida. Photo supplied

Bizet’s Carmen brings heat to Adelaide in a new production by rising South Australian director Laura Hansford that promises to challenge decades of femme-fatale clichés. Through maximalist surrealism and contemporary feminist fire, Hansford reframes Carmen as a woman pushing back against the rules that confine her. South Australian mezzo Charlotte Kelso takes on the title role. 

To close SOSA’s year, the State Opera Chorus – central to the company’s identity from the beginning – finally takes the spotlight it has long shared. Staged in St Peter’s Cathedral, Golden Voices honours five decades of local talent whose collective sound has shaped the emotional core of every major production. From Bizet to Bernstein, Puccini to Poulenc, Verdi to Wagner … and more.

Appropriately in a 50th year, the community focus is strong. A new children’s opera, Piccolini-Gu, by Nardi Simpson, brings opera to babies as young as newborns, while A Score Through Time tours primary schools with time-travel, humour and a crash course in centuries of music. The Elder Conservatorium collaboration on Rachel Portman’s The Little Prince places young singers at the heart of a story about imagination and connection. 

For more information on State Opera South Australia’s 2026 Season, visit stateopera.com.au