Surprise successes and predictable victories characterise this year’s awards, announced this evening in Melbourne.

After major award successes in 2015, Opera Australia and the Sydney Dance Company have added more awards to their trophy cabinets at the 33rd Green Room Awards. However, there were a few surprises among the winners in the Musical Theatre categories. The Green Room Awards, Melbourne’s premier peer-presented performing arts industry awards, celebrated work presented in Victoria during 2015.

Opera Australia has continued to dominate the Green Room’s Opera category, taking out all but three awards in that section for their productions of Le Nozze di Figaro, Madama Butterfly, Don Carlos and The Rabbits. Victorian Opera took home the remaining gongs for The Flying Dutchman, with Roger Hodgman receiving the Direction award and the Australian Youth Orchestra receiving the Special Award for Orchestral Excellence for their part in that production.

The Sydney Dance Company’s Frame of Mind programme, which cleaned up at the 2015 Helpmann Awards, has continued its run of success by winning the Duet and Ensemble Performance Awards, Female Dancer (Jesse Scales) and Male Dancer (David Mack) categories. Antony Hamilton and Alisdair Macindoe also did well, receiving awards for Concept and Realisation, Music...