Limelight speaks to Richard Mills about 2016’s gastronomic delights, circus thrills, and bel canto masterworks.

Opera is an art-form that often suffers from an image problem. Viewed as old fashioned, out of date and prohibitively expensive, persuading the uninitiated to dip their toes into the rich artistic waters of opera can be a challenge. The Artistic Director of Victorian Opera, Richard Mills, is a man on a mission to drag the art-form out from behind the dusty velvet curtain and into the 21st Century. “This company is brave,” he says with a palpable note of confidence in his voice. “If the art form doesn’t reinvent itself and change it will die, because anything that doesn’t reinvent itself stagnates. So it’s our desire for renewal, for relevance, for engagement that drives our desire to do new and interesting work.” In 2016 new opera rubs shoulders with favourites of the repertoire, including a new production of Lucia di Lammermoore starring coloratura star Jessica Pratt, in a season of “different dreams,” designed to surprise and ensnare the senses.

Richard...