The star tenor in Parsifal leads a season that includes Nicole Car, Ferruccio Furlanetto, Emma Matthews and Ermonela Jaho.

The superstar tenor is back, and this time he means Wagner. Opera Australia have announced today that Jonas Kaufmann will make his operatic debut in concert performances of Wagner’s last, and some would say greatest opera, Parsifal. Other season highlights will include Nicole Car in Massenet’s Thaïs, operatic debuts from Ermonela Jaho, Greta Bradman, Danielle de Niese, and Saimir Pirgu, the return of legendary bass Ferruccio Furlanetto and new productions of Cav and Pag, The Merry Widow and a genuine rarity, Szymanowski’s sensuous historical epic, King Roger.

^{Kaufmann in the Met’s Parsifal}

“There are some pieces where it doesn’t feel like a performance anymore, it feels like a religious experience, and that’s what I feel like with Parsifal,” says a clearly delighted Lyndon Terracini chatting about the new season in his office at the Opera Centre in Surry Hills. “When it works, it’s just this incredible thing, where time becomes irrelevant. I really don’t know how else to describe it except...