Sydney Festival is bringing a lick of Las Vegas magic to town

The 2025 Sydney Festival has announced its first major production, commissioning a stage show based on the extraordinary – and often unbelievable – lives of legendary Las Vegas performers Siegfried Fischbacher and Roy Horn.

Siegfried & Roy: The Unauthorised Opera will play at Sydney Theatre Company from January 8-25. Director and co-writer Constantine Costi and New York trained composer Luke Di Somma have lifted the complicated stories of the Las Vegas duo, which were most famous for their work with white lions and white tigers at the Mirage Resort & Casino.

Costi, who worked on a production of Puccini’s II Tabarro at this year’s Sydney Festival, focuses on the origin of the duo, spinning a rags-to-riches story that’ll resonate with both harder-to-please opera fanatics and casual fans looking for something new and interesting in the new year. 

For those unfamiliar with the infamy, Siegfried and Roy staged an incredible run as one of the longest running performance duos in Las Vegas, completely changing the city’s scope of entertainment and drawing people from all over the world. That is, until one of the trained tigers, Mantacore, attacked Roy and caused enough blood loss to trigger a stroke. 

Ironically, the announcement comes just days after a tiger handler was mauled by a big cat at Dreamworld on the Gold Coast. The trained tiger handler was attacked by a Sumatran tiger on Monday morning, although it’s being reported that she is in stable condition nursing lacerations for her arm in hospital.

“Sydney Festival is known for commissioning big, bold ideas by Australia creatives,” said Festival Director, Olivia Ansell. “This scintillating chamber opera [will be] staged in our dedicated cabaret room at the Festival’s latest precinct—The Thirsty Mile.” 

The duo’s origin story includes scenes of post-war Germany, so seeing that bit of history preceding the glitz and glamour of Las Vegas should help drum up some interest around the contemporary operatic comedy. There’s no story like it, so it seems Sydney Festival has made a necessary move to give tourists and locals something a bit different as we spring into 2025.

One of Australia’s leading operatic tenors, Kanen Breen, has stepped in for the role of Roy while he plays opposite Australian baritone Christopher Tonkin as Siegfried. They will be supported by some of the country’s top stage voices like Catchy-Di Zhang, Louis Hurley, Simon Lobelson and Russell Harcourt. 

We’re not quite sure who will play the tiger that famously attacked Roy just yet, but we’re expecting some great design as the local production seeks to uncover everything about the duo, from their co-dependant bond as best friends to them becoming one of the longest running magic acts to ever take on Las Vegas. 

Siegfried & Roy: The Unauthorised Opera

Where: Wharf 1 Theatre; 15 Hickson Rd, Dawes Point NSW 2000
When: January 8-25, 2025
Price: $80-$129

sydneyfestival.org.au