With Kaufmann, Sir David McVicar and Kasper Holten, Lyndon Terracini pulls out the big guns for Opera Australia’s 2014 season.

Jonas Kaufmann, probably the most sought after singer on the planet, will make his Opera Australia debut in the 2014 season as the latest in Lyndon Terracini’s increasingly impressive roster of the great and the good heading down under to try their hands on our operatic stages.

The superstar tenor heads a list that includes new productions from leading directors of the calibre of Sir David McVicar and Kasper Holten and the return of Alex Ollé and La Fura dels Baus to tackle Handa Opera on the Harbour’s Madama Butterfly. Add to that revivals from luminaries like Francesca Zambello, Harry Kupfer and Julie Taymor plus a slew of overseas singers whose reputations precede them and Opera Australia really is beginning to look like a first rate international opera house.

It’s not all plain sailing. It’s a narrow repertoire, the finances are still balanced on a knife edge and there are plenty of things that Terracini would like to do but can’t without additional funding, but there’s a definite buzz about the place and a feeling of ‘can do’ in the...