That was quick! 2011 has been and gone and we’re already halfway through January, but I think 2012 is still new enough for me to sneak a year-ahead post in. Not my year, per se; I’ll probably bore you enough with that as it actually progresses. No, in the time-honoured operatic tradition of Performance Envy, I thought I’d look instead at what I won’t get to see: all the brilliant performances happening in Australia.

As it happens, I’ll actually be in Australia quite a bit next year, and because the opera gods love me – or, at least, because the global conspiracy against me has subsided – I will in fact manage to see some of the performances which would otherwise have been on this list. Cheryl Barker in Die Tote Stadt, for instance. And of course, some of the other obvious highlights – the Adelaide Symphony’s Das Lied von der Erde, Act I of Die Walküre in Melbourne, Pique Dame at the SSO – are the very reason I’ll be in town, so I’ve left those off as well.

Here, then, in chronological order, are the Top 12 Performances I’ll Miss in 2012:

Elektra, West Australian Opera
February 8, 11, 14

I love Big Scary Strauss as much as I...