Election done and (almost) dusted and notwithstanding the large screen in the main foyer tuned to the ABC’s election coverage, a large audience settled into Llewellyn Hall for the Canberra Symphony Orchestra’s popular annual opera gala.

Jessica Cottis and the Canberra Symphony Orchestra. Photo supplied

As is usually the case with opera (and even elections), there were weird story lines. In one, a lead character is dead before the opera even starts. In another, a noble(?)man’s intended infidelity with a girl on her wedding night sees his wife and the girl devise disguises and tricky plans to catch him out. In still another, a Spanish nobleman is secretly imprisoned so he can’t expose a rival’s crimes.  Then, in another Spanish setting, a brave toreador, before going to the pub, wows the girls outside with a song about his courageous exploits in the bullring.

Can you guess the operas?  Gluck’s Orphée et Eurydice, Mozart’s The Marriage of Figaro, Beethoven’s Fidelio, and Bizet’s Carmen – excerpts from all were featured, along with some others, in this most entertaining concert designed to be something of a potted history of opera stretching back some 400 years.

Making her second...