It was hard to imagine things could step up any further but this last and longest of the Ring operas was also the most majestic.

That anyone can sing Siegfried, the title role in Wagner's third Ring opera, is surprising, so challenging is the role. That anyone can sing it like Stefan Vinke is astounding.

It's a marathon even when things go according to plan, but opera-goers stayed till after midnight to hear Ride of the Valkyries in Die Walkure.

Lise Lindstrom as Brunnhilde was a particular delight, while the surprise of the night, almost but not quite eclipsing her, was Amber Wagner as Sieglinde.

Pinchgut, the opera company named after a convict island, is taking on the Handel work more sophisticated than The Messiah.

Conductor Pietari Inkinen was masterly, unfailingly sensitive to the singers and to the musical flow, while the 100-strong Melbourne Ring Orchestra was superb. Bring on the Valkyries.

Singers have long been troubled by the depiction of African-American people in Porgy and Bess.

From Bugs Bunny to Apocalypse Now, Wagner's opera has become a pop culture classic.

International opera star Sumi Jo has arrived in Canberra for recently moved - but not renamed - Voices in the Forest.

From the overblown pomp of political rallies to the environmental ravages of capitalism, Neil Armfield finds new themes resonating in the return of his Opera Australia production of Wagner's four-opera epic The Ring.

The steely voice of soprano Elena Xanthoudakis sliced through the orchestra like a freshly sharpened axe blade.

For Stuart Skelton, 2016 has been the Year of the Tristan. By the time the avuncular Sydney-born heldentenor reaches Hobart to sing in a concert performance of Wagner's Tristan und Isolde, it will be his 25th performance of this lengthy and arduous role.

Police say a powdered substance that was sprinkled into the orchestra pit at New York's Metropolitan Opera may have been an opera lover's ashes.

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A review of Australia's major opera companies says they should not use government funds to stage "major commercial activities" such as long-run musicals, which have become a major money-spinner for the national company Opera Australia in recent years.

A performance that will be unlike anything staged before in Australia.

In coming months, the Australian opera landscape will be dominated by two classics.

Julia Lezhneva sings with the micro-precision of an exotic bird that manages to find secret places of iridescent resonance.

Four Saints in Three Acts is not so much an opera as a beguiling cross between an oratorio and a Salvador Dali dreamscape.

You can't help but think that if Gertrude Stein were alive, she'd give the Victorian Opera's new production of Four Saints in Three Acts two thumbs up.

On Saturday, after half a century of neglect, came the big thaw.

The stolen generations has become a central story in contemporary Australia and this telling, by a member of that generation, goes to the heart of our sense of self.

Using the "silent disco" model, in which clubbers dance to music sent wirelessly to headphones, Sydney Opera House – The Opera: The Eighth Wonder will be performed on the Opera House steps with the sound relayed to the audience via headsets.

• Opera review

The plot is about as crazy as a plot can get, with much to say about love and marriage and gender and class in an 18th-century setting.

Michael Gow's new translation of Mozart's comic opera will make it accessible to new audiences.