Our cover star this month is opera superstar Jessica Pratt, who talks to Limelight about taking on the fearsome ‘Hoffmann Challenge’ in Damiano Michieletto’s new production of The Tales of Hoffmann for Opera Australia – singing four roles that show off everything a great soprano needs in her tool kit. And who better than Pratt to unpack what it takes to perform opera’s maddest ‘mad scenes’?

Limelight editor Jo Litson also talks to Tom Gleisner, one of the co-founders of Working Dog Productions, and now the writer of a new stage musical, Bloom, having its world premiere at Melbourne Theatre Company. Why did a creative synonymous with film and television (and “officially banned from singing” by his own family) decide to branch out?

Stephen Johnson was the presenter of Discovering Music on BBC Radio 3 for 14 years. He an author, composer and a busy public speaker. Paul Ballam-Cross turns the microphone on this most engaging of musical polymaths as he prepares to deliver a series of talks at the Australian Festival of Chamber Music, including a discussion about his hit book How Shostakovich Changed My Mind.

And in another major feature, Steve...