Opera Australia has announced that Damiano Michieletto’s new production of The Tales of Hoffmann, due to open on 2 August, is to be postponed to a future season due to the NSW Government’s extended stay-at-home orders in Sydney.

Italian director Damiano Michieletto, whose twin productions of Cavalleria Rusticana and Pagliacci proved a big hit for Opera Australia in 2017, was set to return to Sydney for the new staging of Offenbach’s operatic masterpiece, with French tenor Jean-François Borras in the title role and Australian soprano Jessica Pratt as the poet’s four love interests. The co-production with the Royal Opera House was originally scheduled to have its world premiere in London, but COVID restrictions meant that Sydney was set to stage the highly anticipated production first. Sadly that is not to be.

OA Tales of Hoffmann

Jessica Pratt was scheduled to play Hoffmann’s four love interests in Damiano Michieletto’s new production of The Tales of Hoffmann. Image courtesy of Opera Australia

Artistic Director Lyndon Terracini told staff this morning: “This is particularly disappointing for us all as Hoffmann represented the first co-production that was being built and performed here, and then...