Six soloists from the Saarländisches Staatstheater joined the Canberra Symphony Orchestra for its International Opera Gala.

Anyone who’s worked in the music industry will be able to tell you how small a world it is. But that doesn’t mean it’s not a surprise when connections are uncovered across the planet. It was one of these unexpected connections that hit Saarländisches Staatstheater’s larger-than-life Icelandic baritone Olafur Sigurdarson, in Australia for the Canberra Symphony Orchestra’s International Opera Gala on Saturday.

The gala, which saw six guest vocalists from the State Opera House of Saabrücken in Germany join with the musicians of the CSO for an evening of opera highlights, was a joint initiative of the Australian and German governments, a cultural exchange borne of one of 59 recommendations by the Australia-Germany Advisory Group. The group includes both Lucy Turnbull and conductor Nicholas Milton – the CSO’s Chief Conductor and Artistic Director and the general Music Director of Saaländisches Staatstheater. The opera house in Saarbrücken is one of the largest theatres in Germany and boasts a full time staff of over 450 people – remarkable (at least by Australian standards) for a city with less than half the population of Canberra.