Sunset Boulevard is returning to Australia for the first time in almost 20 years, in an Opera Australia production starring Sarah Brightman.
The English soprano is one of the world's best-selling singers, known for being the first to play Christine in Phantom of the Opera in the West End and on Broadway.
Playing Norma Desmond in Sunset Boulevard will be Brightman's first theatrical role in more than 30 years.
"I am so delighted to be returning to Australia after many years, and to be marking my return to the stage in a musical after so long, it is only fitting for it to be with such an exquisite production as Sunset Boulevard," she said.
The Andrew Lloyd Webber musical will premiere at the Princess Theatre in Melbourne in May before a season at the Sydney Opera House in August.
It marks the first main stage production of the show in Australia in almost two decades.
The musical is based on the Billy Wilder film and first played in London in 1993, with a Broadway production winning six Tony awards.
Sunset tells the story of silent movie star Norma Desmond, who has been cast aside by Hollywood, and her volatile relationship with struggling Hollywood screenwriter Joe Gillis.
Producers have begun the search for an Australian cast to join Brightman.
Opera Australia chief executive Fiona Allan has said more musicals are an obvious fresh income stream for the national opera company, following its post-COVID worst-ever operating loss of $22.6 million in 2021.
But Allan has promised musical theatre productions won't come at the expense of the company's opera program.
