Press

Battistoni allowed the music of Act 1 to unfold without rush, galvanising the Opera Australia Orchestra’s energy into major points of emphasis in the later acts and sustaining fluid but finely calibrated momentum in which the singers could foment compelling drama.

 

https://www.smh.com.au/culture/live-reviews/thirty-years-on-rave-veterans-underworld-still-own-the-night-20251230-p5nqp0.html

 

 

 

Under Andrea Battistoni and Concertmaster Matthieu Arama, the Opera Australia Orchestra delivers an exemplary reading of Puccini’s score.

Battistoni is incredibly attentive and sympathetic to the needs of the singers, and he demonstrates an innate understanding of Puccini’s dramatic impulse, phrasing and lyricism which underpins the emotional intensity. His dynamic control is second to none, and the orchestra’s performance of the Dawn Prelude is worthy of the concert podium.

 

https://limelight-arts.com.au/reviews/madama-butterfly-opera-australia-2025/

 

Musically, the evening was superbly paced under the baton of Andrea Battistoni, tonight announced as Opera Australia’s incoming Music Director. The orchestra played with colour, tension and a strong sense of the theatre going on above them. Puccini’s Japanese-inflected music with its pentatonic figures, bell colours, even the pointed intrusion of The Star-Spangled Banner, was handled with finesse.

 

https://www.google.com/url?q=https://email.streem.com.au/c/eJyMz7vO2yAYxvGrwRsWvBwMA8MXJVamtkukbhWGlxr5lIKdNL36Kupc6Zt_zzP8o5Peptig453ulNadkc3oBi7Ra5uC0GANS4mxmGKKUviACKrJTlvlMQ5cWmPYD85DVMyyxIlkNUec8i-6-DxjqVRHqU0MnTU0PsGY9g3N7MZ9v1ciPgj0BPo5r1Nt614QlzZsS-sPAn2Yfa152lYKDDTjTNLvZVh_f5FX_qfcTrd1jOMwXoZvTDEi-glfz63EStSJqDMR5693LJ7A6eOoe_Fz9gTUBQgowwgoaysB_ZnT_0fX7ajYFPfIYXq1i1-3OVci2fb2dis_W380_7pojo6JzirhkSoZJJVSa2o4Ah2UsgmTVjKK5uHgbwAAAP__VMt96g&source=gmail&ust=1767655047115000&usg=AOvVaw3w-vm_U5u3wFbiNZEbwJ7T&rct=i

 

 

Maestro Andrea Battistoni, beginning his tenure as OA’s Music Director, brilliantly conducts a very fine Opera Australia orchestra.

 

https://sydneyartsguide.com.au/opera-australias-production-of-madama-butterfly-the-power-of-opera/

 

 

The superb music was performed wonderfully by the world-class Opera Australia orchestra under the enthusiastic conducting of Italian Andrea Battistoni, highly respected for many OA performances.

 

https://www.jwire.com.au/madama-butterflyjust-magnificent/

 

Maestro Andrea Battistoni conducted Act One like someone coaxing perfume out of a rose. By Acts Two and Three he just let Puccini grab us all by the feelings and drag us through yearning, dread, and the kind of despair usually triggered by a dodgy text message at 2am.

And when The Humming Chorus floated through?

Collective devastation.

 

https://www.firstclassmagazine.co/review-madama-butterfly-sydney-opera-house-opera-australia/