Review: My Fair Lady at the Sydney Opera House
Review by Carly Fisher
It is difficult to imagine a musical more perfectly suited to the Sydney Opera House than My Fair Lady. The gowns, the grandeur, the music, the spectacle — Lerner and Loewe’s enduring classic arrives in a production that understands exactly how much pleasure there is in putting something this beautiful on a stage.
And it is beautiful.
This revival of My Fair Lady, currently playing at the Sydney Opera House, is based on the lavish 2016 Australian production originally directed by Julie Andrews, who herself originated the role of Eliza Doolittle in the 1956 Broadway production. The 2026 production is directed by Karen Johnson Mortimer, guided by Andrews’ original staging, with choreography by Christopher Gattelli and the original production directed and staged by Moss Hart. The production retains Oliver Smith’s set design and Cecil Beaton’s costume design, with the costumes recreated by John David Ridge.
It is, quite simply, a lavish piece of musical theatre that is easy to love.
The score remains one of the great pleasures of the form. Seventy years after its Broadway debut, songs such as “Wouldn’t It Be Loverly?”, “I Could Have Danced All Night” and “Get Me to the Church on Time” remain utterly captivating - we all know the words and we are eager to singalong. There is an ease to the music, it is comfortable and lived in whilst remaining catchy and David Young’s musical direction, alongside the Opera Australia Orchestra, gives the score the scale and richness it deserves.
The costumes are spectacular. The black and white Ascot scene is a marvel and is a masterclass in collaboration between the Director, Choreographer and Designer. The costumes in this show do not only sparkle throughout, they are an important vice in the storytelling of this rags to riches story. The set supports this and is equally beautiful. It fills the Joan Sutherland Theatre with the kind of old-world theatricality that makes this production feel like an event rather than simply another musical revival.
My only real frustration with the design is in the transitions.For a production that otherwise feels so lavish and sophisticated, the scene changes are surprisingly old-fashioned. The need for a blackout AND a full curtain between scenes repeatedly interrupts the momentum. Rather than allowing one scene to breathe naturally into the next, the production periodically stops, closes itself off and then starts again. It is a small issue in the context of such a spectacular production, but one that becomes increasingly noticeable because almost everything else is so beautifully considered.
The cast are simply terrific. Claire Lyon’s Eliza is beautifully played, and her operatic voice is stunning. There is an impressive vocal purity to her performance, but she also understands that Eliza’s transformation cannot simply be about learning to speak differently. Lyon gives us the emotional journey underneath the phonetics, and there is a lovely sense of growth as Eliza begins to understand that the person she is becoming might belong to her, rather than to Higgins.
Nathaniel Parker brings a commanding presence to Professor Henry Higgins, finding the necessary wit and arrogance in a man who has become accustomed to believing that his intellect gives him the right to dictate the lives of others.
Reg Livermore is perfectly cast as Alfred P. Doolittle. There is a natural theatricality to Livermore that makes the role feel almost inevitable, and his performance has the energy, timing and personality that the character demands. His scenes are among those that remind us just how much comic life can be extracted from this material when it is placed in the hands of performers who know precisely how to play it.
Robyn Nevin is, as ever, a talent. Her role as Mrs Higgins is comparatively small, and I found myself wishing there had been more from her. What she is given, however, is beautifully judged, with Nevin bringing an intelligence and authority to the character that makes every appearance count.
Freddy Hellier for me, is a standout. As Freddy Eynsford Hill, Hellier brings a lovely sweetness to the role, particularly in his optimistic pursuit of Eliza. His performance never feels cynical or overly knowing; there is something wonderfully sincere about his belief in possibility. His vocals are excellent, too, and he proves a particularly engaging presence whenever he is on stage.
But ultimately, like I usually feel it does, it is the ensemble that deserves the loudest applause. Vocally, this is a remarkably strong company, and the production has the kind of polish you would expect from Opera Australia working at the scale of the Sydney Opera House. It is however their more physical scenes - the races, the ball and more than anything, the ‘get me to the church on time’ scene - where this phenomenal ensemble really shows their world-class skill. Every time I see a show like this I leave so excited by the talent in our Australian companies and this particular group truly has some of the best of the best.
I saw this production when it first came to Sydney in 2016/17, and I remember being struck by its beauty then. In 2018/19, I saw the musical again in New York, with Laura Benanti as Eliza, in Bartlett Sher’s Broadway revival. That experience has stayed with me — particularly because the ending was approached differently. Sher did not rewrite the musical. The text remained intact. Instead, he changed the staging of the final moments so that Eliza, after returning to Higgins, ultimately leaves him and walks into her own future. The Lerner estate and Loewe Foundation approved the interpretation, and Sher described his intention as reconnecting the musical with the spirit of George Bernard Shaw’s Pygmalion, rather than treating the story as a conventional romantic comedy.
Shaw’s 1913 Pygmalion was never intended to be a straightforward love story. The musical adaptation transformed it into something warmer, more romantic and, ultimately, more comfortable. Sher’s staging asks us to reconsider what happens when a woman who has spent the entire story being shaped by a man finally has the opportunity to decide what happens next.
Having seen that version, I will be honest: it is difficult to go back.
Not because I think every classic needs to be modernised. Quite the opposite. We should be able to see period pieces as creations of their time. We should be able to appreciate the historical context in which they were written without demanding that every work conform to our contemporary expectations. My Fair Lady is a beautiful example of its era, and there is enormous value in preserving and presenting that history.
But preservation and interrogation do not have to be opposites. In conversations since opening night, I have heard people say of this production that Eliza remains a strong woman; that she has agency throughout the story; that the transformation is ultimately hers because she chooses what to do with what she has learned. I understand that reading, and there is certainly evidence within the production to support it.
But having now seen this musical three times in the past decade across different productions and different cities, I find myself asking a slightly different question: What are we still trying to say when we programme My Fair Lady? What does this story have to offer an audience now? And perhaps most importantly, what are we asking young women in the audience to take from Eliza’s story?
The enduring appeal of My Fair Lady is not in question. The music is extraordinary. The performances here are excellent. The costumes are magnificent. The design is beautiful. There is an enormous amount to admire. I hope I have made clear above how polished and pristine I feel that this production is.
But loving a work does not mean we have to stop questioning it. In fact, perhaps that is precisely what we should be doing with our classics. Bartlett Sher’s version demonstrated that you can treat a beloved musical with enormous respect while still looking at it through fresh eyes. His production did not throw away Lerner and Loewe. It did not erase the history. It did not rewrite a single line. It simply asked what happens when Eliza is allowed to walk away.
I would love to see that version find its way to Australia.
My Fair Lady remains a glorious musical, one that will undoubtedly appeal to the Opera Australia audience, and there is nothing wrong with giving audiences something lovely.
Theatre should provide pleasure, beauty and escape.
But I think our audiences are capable of more than that.
Because Eliza deserves to be more than the woman who becomes a lady.
She deserves to be the woman who gets to decide what being one means.
