The Sydney Opera House has announced a significant package of accessibility upgrades set to roll out through 2026, and it’s some of the best news I’ve heard in a while. Not because it’s glamorous — it won’t make the social pages — but because it addresses something the performing arts sector has been too slow to fix: making sure everyone can actually experience live performance.

Let me break down what’s coming.

The key changes

The headline announcement is a $14 million investment in physical and sensory accessibility across the Opera House precinct. That includes:

Improved mobility access to the Joan Sutherland Theatre and the Drama Theatre, with new lift installations and reconfigured seating areas that increase wheelchair-accessible positions from 12 to 28 per venue. For context, the current accessible seating has been essentially unchanged since the 2004 upgrades, and demand has long outstripped supply.

Expanded audio description services for opera and theatre performances. Currently, audio-described performances are offered a handful of times per season. Under the new plan, every mainstage production will have at least two audio-described performances, with a long-term goal of making audio description available at every showing via a personal device and app.

Tactile tours of the stage and set before selected performances, allowing blind and low-vision patrons to physically explore the production design. This already happens at a few venues internationally — the Royal Opera House in London has done it well — and it’s wonderful to see Sydney adopting the practice.

Hearing loop upgrades across all performance venues, replacing aging infrared systems with modern induction loops that are compatible with most hearing aids. The current system has been a source of complaints for years, with patchy coverage and frequent dead spots.

Captioning expansion, with open captions on screens for an increased number of performances and investigation of smart glasses-based captioning that audience members could use at any performance without affecting the experience for others.

Why this matters for opera

Opera, perhaps more than any other art form, has an accessibility challenge. The sung text is often in a foreign language. The venues are old. The performances are long. The storytelling relies heavily on visual spectacle. If you have a hearing impairment, a vision impairment, or a mobility limitation, the barriers to attending are substantial.

And those barriers aren’t abstract. I’ve received emails from readers over the years who love opera but have stopped attending because the experience became too difficult. A woman in her 70s whose hearing aid couldn’t pick up the infrared signal. A wheelchair user who was offered a sight line partially blocked by a pillar. A father with an autistic son who wanted to bring him to The Magic Flute but couldn’t find a relaxed performance option.

These are real people being excluded from an art form that should be for everyone.

The relaxed performance commitment

One detail that particularly caught my attention: the Opera House has committed to trialling relaxed performances for at least two opera productions in 2026. Relaxed performances — where house lights are kept slightly up, audience members can move freely, and unexpected loud sounds are flagged in advance — have been standard in commercial theatre for years but are almost unheard of in opera.

This is tricky territory. Opera relies on dynamic extremes — from a whisper to a full orchestral fortissimo. But companies overseas have found ways to make it work, usually through advance information and a welcoming atmosphere rather than actually modifying the performance.

If it encourages even a handful of families to attend who wouldn’t otherwise, it’s worth trying.

The funding picture

The $14 million investment comes from a combination of NSW Government capital works funding and the Opera House’s own reserves, with some corporate sponsorship. The Sydney Opera House Trust has positioned this as part of the broader Renewal program that’s been upgrading the building since 2017.

I’d note that $14 million is modest compared to the hundreds of millions spent on the Concert Hall renovation. But accessibility upgrades are typically less visible and less photogenic than architectural transformations, even when they make a bigger practical difference to people’s lives.

What’s still missing

I don’t want to be ungrateful — this is genuine progress. But I’ll flag a few gaps.

There’s no mention of Auslan-interpreted performances for Deaf audiences. The theatre sector has been providing these for years, and opera — where the text is already being “translated” via surtitles — seems like a natural fit.

There’s also limited detail about digital accessibility. The Opera House website, where most people buy tickets and find information, still has navigability issues for screen reader users. Physical access is important, but the journey starts online.

And finally, pricing. Accessible seating is often in premium locations (front-of-house, unobstructed views), which means it comes at premium prices. If we’re serious about access, there needs to be a conversation about ensuring accessible seats are available across all price points.

A step in the right direction

Overall, though, this announcement deserves recognition. The performing arts have been talking about accessibility for years. It’s good to see a major institution actually spending the money and making concrete commitments with timelines.

Opera belongs to everybody. The buildings where we experience it should reflect that. Sydney is catching up, and I’m glad.