Opera Australia traces it origins to the formation of the Australian Opera Company in Sydney in 1956; the company changed its name to the Elizabethan Theatre Trust Opera Company, after its parent organization, a year later. In 1970, it became the Australian Opera, and in 1996 it merged with Melbourne's Victorian State Opera to become Opera Australia.

"The first fifty years of Australia's national opera company have been enriched by a vital and enduring association with the leading opera practitioners of the United Kingdom," said CEO Adrian Collette. "Richard Hickox, one of the world's foremost conductors, recently moved with his family to Australia from England to spend six months of every year fulfilling his new post as music director of Opera Australia. We look forward to continuing this long and rewarding collaboration over the next fifty years."