Opera Australia has been hit hard by the pandemic’s economic impact. It’s time to rethink our approach to funding opera, with a focus on local companies.
Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg (The Mastersingers of Nuremburg) is a long, complex work. An ensemble performance by Opera Australia transports Wagner’s 16th-century guild of mastersingers to a modern-day men’s club.
Australian operas have been written about many pressing topics - from the Stolen Generations to the Lindy Chamberlain case - but few have been staged a second time. What is going wrong?
It is a strange reality but opera as an artform is always given special and arguably preferential treatment by governments and other influential forces in Western society. This happens, it seems, regardless…
The kinds of voices that can be used in a show like ABC’s The Divorce are certainly not typical of those one would hear in Madama Butterfly. But – and let’s be honest for a second – does it matter?
Amid dwindling audiences and rising production costs, Australian opera is facing its first national review. So what are the solutions put forward so far?
Opera Australia has once again posted a major operating loss and is weathering criticism for its very safe repertoire. Both these points merit consideration in the federal government’s National Opera Review.
Opera Australia (OA) has dealt with what was becoming a significant boycott threat by sacking the Georgian soprano Tamar Iveri. The company had planned to bring her to Australia to perform the role of…
The fictional character of Carmen – the heroine of Bizet’s opera – attracts a range of labels which variously position her as seductress, femme fatale, sex addict, fate/ death obsessed, victim, liberated…
Opera Australia is currently performing Richard Wagner’s most famous work, Der Ring des Nibelungen – The Ring Cycle – marking the bicentenary of the composer’s birth, at a reported cost of A$20 million…