A regular director with Opera Australia, Constantine Costi was responsible last year for the triumphant production of La Traviata on Sydney Harbour. He’s worked with other leading Australian arts companies including Pinchgut Opera and the Australian Brandenburg Orchestra, and is co-artistic director of Red Line Productions at Sydney’s Old Fitz. Simon Moore speaks with Con in the lead up to him taking on Halevy’s La Juive with Opera Australia, to be performed on these shores for the first time. As well as giving some insights into this opera, he talks about his next show with Red Line, Kurt Weill’s The Seven Deadly Sins & Mahagonny Songspiel, and shares stories from the earlier period of his career, creating guerrilla productions of operas in Newtown, plus his handy abilities with a fish and a filleting knife.

La Juive is on at the Sydney Opera House from 9 to 26 March.

The Seven Deadly Sins & Mahagonny Songspiel is on at the Old Fitz Theatre from 31 March to 23 April.