Joan Sutherland Theatre, Sydney Opera House
March 1, 2018

Regular Opera Australia audiences will be very familiar with Elijah Moshinsky’s production of La Traviata. It has, after all, been in the repertoire since 1994. Beautiful though the staging still is, the fact that the production is one of the highlights of the 2018 season is because of the excitement surrounding Nicole Car’s debut as Violetta – and what a stunning debut it was. Greeted with a well-deserved standing ovation and roars of approval from the opening night audience, her radiant performance will doubtless go down in OA history as a night to remember.

Nicole Car in Opera Australia’s La Traviata. Photos © Prudence Upton

Australian audiences have been lucky enough to be able to follow the burgeoning career of the Melbourne-born soprano who joined OA as a Young Artist in 2011 and has since gradually built her repertoire there with lovely performances as Mimì in La Bohème, Marguerite in Faust, Tatyana in Eugene Onegin and the title role in Thaïs among others.

Now based in Paris, Car’s international career is taking flight (she made her Covent Garden debut in 2015 and later this year will debut at...