It's always a night of nights – that annual event when Canberra Symphony Orchestra is joined by outstanding singers to present sparkling opera favourites.

This year, Stanley Dodds will conduct the orchestra and three talented young singers from Opera Australia in a program to delight everyone who loves the music, drama and emotion of opera.

Dodds, resident in Berlin now for 23 years, embraces the dual roles of conducting the Berlin Symphony Orchestra in the main venue in Berlin, with playing as a violinist in the Berlin Philharmonic. He lived in Adelaide as a boy before studying overseas. He was in Canberra in September 2009, to conduct the CSO in a program based on Mendelssohn's A Midsummer Night's Dream, and he's looking forward to seeing family members in Canberra and getting together with the orchestra.

"We're only together for a short time but I trust there'll be future engagements here," he says.

"The vocal numbers in the Gala were determined by Opera Australia," Dodds explains, "but I chose some more numbers from Carmen, as well as overtures and interludes to divide up the program."

Dodds hasn't yet met his three soloists, "but, never mind, we'll find one another", he says.

Soprano Stacey Alleaume was in Canberra several years ago with Opera Australia Regional Touring in a production of The Magic Flute. This year she has performed her first principal role with Opera Australia in Sydney, as Leila in The Pearl Fishers.

"It's only the beginning," she says, "but I've been given the role of Alexandra Mason in Opera Australia's Sydney Opera House – The Opera, which will be performed at the Sydney Opera House forecourt in October-November."

This exciting project is a further step from the popular Handa Opera and is made up of 14 scenes adapted from the Alan John and Dennis Watkins opera, which premiered in October 1995 and tells the story of this iconic building.

At the opera gala, Alleaume will be singing Micaela's aria from Carmen and later in July will perform the role of Micaela in Opera Australia's production. She will also sing one of opera's best loved arias, Si, Mi Chiamano Mimi from La Boheme, and will join with mezzo-soprano Anna Yun to sing the duet Dome Epais le Jasmin, from Lakmé. "And there might be some other little surprises," she says.

"To make a career in opera you have to be patient, to mature and have life experience," she says. "It's a gradual progression up the ladder. I just love performing and telling a story. You have to make the audience believe it."

Anna Yun, who sang the role of Suzuki in the Handa Opera production of Madama Butterfly, will also take several roles in Sydney Opera House – The Opera later this year. At the opera gala she will sing the Habanera from Carmen and Mon Coeur S'ouvre a Ta Voix from Samson et Dalila.

And then there will be some of the best-known tenor arias from Simon Kim: Cavaradossi's E Lucevan le Stelle from Tosca, La Fleur Que Tu M'avais Jetee from Carmen and, of course, Nessun Dorma, that blockbuster of tenor arias, from Turandot.

Dodds has chosen a range of instrumental pieces to interleave with the vocal gems: The Merry Wives of Windsor Overture, Intermezzo from Cavalleria Rusticana, Bacchanale from Samson et Dalila "and a bit of the William Tell Overture – not the whole thing; it's too long – just enough to break up the aria sets".

Although Dodds doesn't often work in opera houses, he says he works with singers whenever he gets the chance.

"I'm principally a symphonic conductor but I love music theatre," he says. He is always eager to promote young musicians and has recently worked in Germany with Australian lyric soprano Siobhan Stagg, whose voice was described by the great Christa Ludwig as "one of the most beautiful I've ever heard".

"And just recently I found a young Australian singer, Anna Smith, here in Berlin and she sang a very beautiful Mozart program,"Dodds says.

One of his favourite operas is Debussy's Pelleas et Melisande. "Perhaps not everyman's taste," he says, "but, in terms of psychological finesse coupled with music subtlety, I think it's pretty hard to beat. And I find Wagner operas a bit like a drug. I can understand the unbelievable gravitational pull that they have on your spirit. And then how can you look past Mozart operas? Not to mention Richard Strauss – Salome."

Dodds seems the perfect person to bring this extensive program of opera together.

"This concert is delightful for me because it's not so often that I get to conduct opera repertoire. I'm here for the music and the orchestra and the singers and the audience. Quite simply, what I hope to bring out at this opera gala is the joy of music. The emotions belong on the stage and I think it should be an evening of joy and high emotions in an evening of contrasts."