Gala Opening Concert (1973)
Available from 3 September until 3 October
Dug from the ABC’s archives, these two performances by the Sydney Symphony Orchestra and Opera Australia were the very first ever staged in the Opera House. The program was dedicated to the works of Wagner, a German composer, and featured a stirring performance from the Swedish soprano Birgit Nilsson. The decision to give the spotlight to Hitler’s favourite composer did inspire some grumbles – but when has the Opera House ever not been controversial? – Sian Cain
Gurrumul and Sydney Symphony Orchestra (2014)
Available from 6 September until 6 October
After collaborating with the Sydney Symphony Orchestra in 2013 at the Opera House for a live album, the transcendental Yolŋu singer returned the following year for an encore. Working with the SSO was an important bridge for Gurrumul before his neoclassical final album, Djarimirri (Child of the Rainbow); the music is accompanied by footage and photos of the artist’s life, from his earliest years growing up on Elcho Island. Six years after his passing, Gurrumul’s voice remains a healing force. – Andrew Stafford
The Australian Ballet: La Sylphide (2013)
Available from 7 September until 7 October
One of the oldest story ballets still performed, La Sylphide features every ballet cliche – bouncing around in tutus; a jaunty, string-heavy score; copious magic – but they’re good cliches. In Australia, it doesn’t get trotted out frequently like the bird or the toy do, so this critically acclaimed 2013 staging is like getting a B-side on a greatest hits record. The a-fairy-broke-my-engagement plotline is pure melodrama, with added witches, and as a bonus it’s set in Scotland so everyone’s wearing a skirt. – Alyx Gorman
Yaeji: Vivid Live (2023)
Available from 15 September until 15 March 2024
Yaeji, per her own admission, was still feeling the jet lag when she appeared at Vivid Live earlier this year – so one can only imagine what a standard performance looks like. Six years since her ubiquitous breakout Raingurl, the Korean American musician played her debut album With a Hammer in full, twirling and stomping across an empty stage, often accompanied by little more than an office chair. Full of homespun choreography and softly spoken interludes to the crowd, it felt like peeking into a private universe of rage and rapture. – Michael Sun
Sampa the Great: Vivid Live (2022)
Available from 19 September until 27 May 2027
Sampa the Great’s debut album, The Return, won her accolades, but it was her relocation from Australia back to her home country Zambia which brought her freedom. The resulting record, 2022’s As Above, So Below, is a howling celebration of the culture that raised her, and she toured it in a show titled An Afro Future, with friends and collaborators including her sister Mwanjé – also a musician – alongside the DJ C.FRIM and R&B singer Kye. It was riotous, transportive: a commitment to euphoria. – MS
Sydney Philharmonia Choirs: Handel: Messiah (Auslan Performance) (2015)
Available from 22 September to 22 October
What does it mean when one of the greatest choral works in the western art music canon can be seen and not just heard? The 500 voices in the Sydney Philharmonia Choirs are joined by an Auslan choir – comprised of people from the deaf and hearing community – who translate the libretto with all-body expressions, movements and gestures. By the time the climactic Hallelujah chorus comes around, the results are pure joy. – Yvonne C Lam
Iggy Pop (2019)
Available from 23 September until 23 October
There are many layers of improbability about this incredible performance. There’s the inherent contradiction of the man once known as Iggy Stooge playing at the Opera House; there’s the bizarre spectacle of an elderly gentleman bouncing around like the Energizer bunny – hell, the fact that Iggy Pop is still with us at 76 (nearing 72 at the time of this gig) is impressive enough. Be amazed as he tears through one punk urtext after another, from I Wanna Be Your Dog to Real Cool Time. – Andrew Stafford
Khruangbin (2022)
Available from 26 September 2023 until 27 November 2026
This genre-defying Houston trio is a must-see live act – but if you can’t, this is absolutely the next best thing. Funk, psychedelia, disco and soul are combined in their own special blend, with bassist Laura Lee, drummer Donald “DJ” Johnson Jr and guitarist Mark Speer putting on a very stylish show. Speers’ ability to noodle must be seen/heard to be believed. Hook this up to the biggest speakers you can find and boogie in your living room. – SC
The National (2018)
Available from 29 September until 29 October
Before they were Taylor Swift’s right-hand men, the National were the soundtrack to sad dads (and girls) everywhere. When they first played the Opera House’s forecourt in 2014, my childhood best friend and I went one night – then came back the next to sit on a plinth outside and listen. This 2018 return to the venue was on the back of Sleep Well Beast, at the time their most experimental album – and this concert film sounds more DIY than the usual, with footage spliced together from various sources. – GN
Opera Australia: Lucia di Lammermoor (1986)
Available from 30 September until 30 October
While the greatest international singers have clambered to perform at the Opera House, none dominated the stage quite as convincingly as our own Dame Joan Sutherland – to the extent that the venue named its second largest theatre for her. There are several great performances available to stream, but it’s hard to overlook La Stupenda’s exquisite take on the mad Scotswoman Lucia di Lammermoor, the role that made her name at Covent Garden. Lucia weds, gets her heart broken, gets a bit stabby and of course dies in the end. But boy does she sing, in Bel Canto’s most fiendish and memorable part. – Tim Byrne
Synergy Percussion: Steve Reich, A Celebration (2012)
Available from 11 October to 11 November (only in Australia)
You’d not usually expect to be transfixed by two men clapping onstage. But when one is Steve Reich (one of the most celebrated minimalist composers of recent decades, in a baseball cap that won’t quit) performing Clapping Music, it is hard to shake from your memory. Elsewhere on this program, Reich’s Drumming (Part I) performed by Synergy Percussion is a masterclass in technique and restraint, while Carl Dewhurst’s performance of Electric Guitar is equal parts a reverie and a revelation. – YCL
Bell Shakespeare: Richard III (2017)
Available from 12 October until 12 November
Kate Mulvany found an instant connection with Richard III when his bones were dug up from a Leicester car park in 2013, confirming he had suffered scoliosis or spinal curvature. In 2017, the actor exploited her own scoliosis in this role for Bell Shakespeare, displaying the natural curve in her back while ignoring a lifetime of medical therapy training her to walk straight. Mulvany gave Richard a vulnerable, deeply human presence – no small feat given the Bard’s text reinforces the mythology of a malevolent monarch. – Steve Dow
Sydney Dance Company: Boxes (1985)
Available from 17 October until 17 November
In 1985 Icehouse collaborated with Sydney Dance Co on a “dance/theatre/rock music extravaganza” that required a rotating stage so large it could never be performed again. This is that collaboration. Contemporary dance that is no longer contemporary is a lucky dip, because some of it remains beautiful or even avant-garde, and some of it ages so cheesily it wouldn’t look out of place in a Wiggles show. Often it’s a bit of both. Boxes will hopefully be a lot of both. – AG
Bangarra Dance Theatre: Yuldea (2023)
Available from 21 October until 4 November
Frances Rings created or co-created seven works for Bangarra, but this one was her most personal, drawing on her mother’s Wirangu/Mirning Country on the eastern edge of the Nullarbor plain. Pulsing with energy fuelled by the troupe’s visit to the region, as well as Rings’ sensory recall of a childhood living in railway siding camps, the dancers recreated ancient gatherings on a set of sheer cliffs and windswept trees, before conveying the cultural shock when a railway line, akin to a giant steel serpent, suddenly cut across the land, changing lives for ever. – SD
Autopsy on a Dream / The Dream of Perfection (1968 / 2013)
Available from 21 October until 21 November
This utterly compelling documentary was originally shot in 1968 by the director John Weiley, commissioned by then BBC Two controller David Attenborough to follow all the drama behind the building of the Opera House. Culminating with the controversial dismissal of architect Jørn Utzon, it screened just once before every copy was mysteriously destroyed. Or so they thought. Forty-five years later an ABC producer found a copy with no soundtrack in the BBC vaults. A new voiceover from original narrator Bob Ellis was added in 2013, who delivers a beautifully sardonic performance: “The Sydney Opera House. Product of a people who had a genial bash at culture, then went back to their beer. But oh what a lovely bash.” – SC
The Sydney Opera House’s 50/50 series of films is available here, with new streams becoming available across 50 days from 3 September
