From bohemia to the outback: Opera Queensland launches its 2025 season

In-demand international coloratura soprano Sumi Jo goes bush for Opera Queensland’s Festival of Outback Opera in 2025.
Opera Queensland's 'La Cenerentola (Cinderella)' is the centrepiece of the 2025 Brisbane Bel Canto Festival. A fair-skinned young woman wearing an exaggerated wreath of flowers on her head stands with shoulders bared against a floral background.

Oscar-nominated coloratura soprano Sumi Jo will headline Opera Queensland’s (OQ) fifth Festival of Outback Opera as part of the company’s newly announced 2025 season.

Other highlights of the season, details of which were launched today (Tuesday 19 November) include a new staging of Puccini’s bohemian love story La bohème for Brisbane Festival, co-produced with West Australian Opera; the return of the Brisbane Bel Canto Festival, now in its second year; and the continuation of OQ’s Studio Series, featuring intimate, cabaret-style performances and exclusive recitals that bridge the classical and the modern.

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Richard Watts OAM is ArtsHub's National Performing Arts Editor; he also presents the weekly program SmartArts on Three Triple R FM. Richard is a life member of the Melbourne Queer Film Festival, a Melbourne Fringe Festival Living Legend, and was awarded the Sidney Myer Performing Arts Awards' Facilitator's Prize in 2020. In 2021 he received a Lifetime Achievement Award from the Green Room Awards Association. Most recently, Richard received a Medal of the Order of Australia (OAM) in June 2024. Follow him on Twitter: @richardthewatts