Saturday night was another first when the ninth fairway at the Beechworth Golf Course played host to the concert after a last-minute switch from Baarmutha Park next door.

But what was a contingency plan to avoid damage to the rain-sodden ground at the park has given Opera in the Alps organisers food for thought as they plan next year’s 20th anniversary celebration.

The director of Australian Music Events, Graeme Wall, said staging the concert on the golf course between avenues of mature gum trees was “like doing it in a cathedral”.

“Imagine how it would have been if we had had two months to plan rather than two days,” Mr Wall said.

He told Saturday night’s Opera audience that on Wednesday afternoon they did a test walk onto the ground at Baarmutha Park and “went down and down and down”.

They were immediately concerned about the impact on the surface of the 35-tonne stage and equipment headed up the Hume Highway from Melbourne to Beechworth.

“But as one door closes, another opens and we couldn’t have found a better setting than the golf course,” he said.

“We have a good relationship with the golf club, they have been very supportive and very co-operative.”

Mr Wall said they would continue to work with the Baarmutha Park committee, which includes the golf club, to determine whether the golf course might be a future venue.

“We would seriously consider it,” he said.

Weather conditions at Saturday night’s concert were noticeably cooler than in recent years, including last year when a heatwave in the four days leading up to the event forced organisers to push the starting time back by 20 minutes.

This year there were no such concerns and many in the audience of 4000 people were reaching for jackets and cardigans as the sun started to set and the 30 participants in the Opera Scholars Australia program made their way to the stage along the centre aisle as conductor Guy Noble took charge of the Alpha Sinfonia orchestra with 

Tchaikovsky’s Polonaise, from Eugene Onegin.

Several of the scholar couples turned their talents to dance as well as song for their opening waltz from the same opera.

Three finalists for the Opera Scholar of the Year award were the focus of the early part of the program.

Baritone Stephen Marsh was the first to take the stage, followed by soprano Rebecca Rashleigh and tenor Timothy Daly.

As the clouds took on pink and orange hues in a stunning sunset, Silvie Paladino opened her performance with Don’t Cry for Me Argentina, from the Andrew Lloyd Webber musical Evita, wearing an emerald green gown.

Then it was the turn of crowd favourite, tenor David Hobson, returning to Opera for the fourth time with Non ti Scordar di me (Don’t Forget About Me), by the Italian composer Ernesto de Curtis.

Paladino returned to musical theatre with Something Wonderful, from Rodgers and 

Hammerstein’s The King and I, before Hobson sang the beautiful The Flower Song, from Bizet’s opera Carmen in English.

He remained with Carmen to team up with 2014 Opera Scholar of the Year Jessica Boyd for the duet between Micaela and Don Jose ahead of the first-half climax, Brindisi, from Verdi’s La Traviata, that brought together Hobson, 

Paladino and the Opera chorus in a rousing rendition of the drinking song.

Paladino opened the second half of the concert in a red gown with 

Defying Gravity, the signature song from Stephen Schwartz’s 2003 musical Wicked.

Hobson and Paladino confirmed their classical credentials with Puccini; he with one of the most famous opera arias, 

E Lucevan le stella (And The Stars Were Shining), from Tosca, and she with another classic, 

O Mio Babbino Caro (O My Beloved Father), from Gianni Schicchi.

The Opera Scholars offered the audience their rendition of the folk 

ballad Danny Boy, ahead of Hobson and Marsh with In the Depths of the Temple from Georges Bizet’s 1863 opera The Pearl Fishers.

Paladino, Hobson, the scholars and chorus closed the program with the finale You’ll Never Walk Alone, from the 1945 Rodgers and Hammerstein 

musical Carousel and perhaps made even more famous as the signature song for the Liverpool Football Club.

The performers had one more surprise for an appreciative audience asking for more, with conductor Guy Noble “reaching into his music satchel” for an arrangement of 

Waltzing Matilda and Road to Gundagai as a prelude to next week’s Australia Day.

Opera in the Alps patron and former deputy prime minister Tim Fischer said the ninth fairway venue for the event was “an absolute gem” and “set up a very big number 20 Opera in the Alps in 2016”.

“I hope the song-cum-hymn Jerusalem, which was launched in 1916 as a patriotic song, will be on next year’s program,” he said.

“But this year was one of the very best.”