Opera Australia
Encyclopedia
Opera Australia is the principal opera
company in Australia
. Based in Sydney, its performance season at the Sydney Opera House
runs for approximately eight months of the year, with the remainder of its time spent in the The Arts Centre
in Melbourne (where it is accompanied by Orchestra Victoria
). In 2004, the company gave 226 performances in its subscription seasons in Sydney and Melbourne, attended by more than 294,000 people.
Like most opera companies, it is funded by a combination of government money, corporate sponsorship, private philanthropy, and ticket sales. The proportion of its revenue from ticket sales is considerably higher than that of most companies, approximately 75 per cent. The company is perhaps best known internationally for its association with Dame Joan Sutherland
, and for Baz Luhrmann
's production of Puccini
's La bohème
in the early 1990s.
By the end of 2004, Opera Australia provided employment to approximately 1,300 Australians. OzOpera (Opera Australia's education, access and development arm) presented the La bohème production in Victoria
, Northern Territory
and Western Australia, attended by 13,350 people, while OzOpera's Schools Company performed to over 63,500 primary age children in more than 360 performances in urban and regional New South Wales and Victoria. Many thousands of Australians also experienced the work of their national opera company through television, radio, video, compact disc, DVD, and the annual free performance of opera in the Domain
in Sydney.
. It commemorated the Mozart
bicentenary by presenting four Mozart operas in all capital cities, travelling more than 10,000 kilometres, and giving 169 performances. A truly national company was in place.
In 1959 the company's laid-off singers gave the first of many regional tours (presented by state Arts Councils) with Rossini's The Barber of Seville
using reduced scenery and conducted from the piano by Georg Tintner
(Victoria, New South Wales, Queensland). Subsequent Arts Council tours included Rigoletto
(1960; Victoria, Queensland, New South Wales), Così fan tutte
(1961; New South Wales, Queensland) and La traviata
(1962; New South Wales, Queensland), all conducted by Tintner. However, by 1963 a permanent nucleus of singers and staff was retained throughout the year and the company had made appearances at regional festivals, including the Adelaide Festival
. It was also able to establish the first Elizabethan Trust Orchestra for the company by 1967 with additional government aid.
A major milestone for the company was a television recording of Puccini's Tosca
filmed in 1968 at the Adelaide Festival
. This starred Tito Gobbi
as Scarpia alongside two Australian singers, soprano Marie Collier
in the title role, and tenor Donald Smith as Cavaradossi, with the Italian conductor Carlo Felice Cillario
conducting. This was the commencement of a long and fruitful association between the Australian Opera and Maestro Cillario. Some of his first rehearsals in the country involved conducting the Elizabethan Sydney Orchestra and the Australian Opera Chorus, both newly formed and on permanent contracts.
While not yet appearing with this company, Joan Sutherland
, then an internationally known Australian soprano, and her husband, the conductor Richard Bonynge
, helped the cause of opera in general in Australia during the 1960s. Sutherland's name was also linked to the progress of the Sydney Opera House, begun in 1957 and still undergoing a lengthy and controversial construction. By the time 'La Stupenda' appeared there in 1974, one year after the opening of the theatre, the company was a leading repertory company with a large chorus and a roster of experienced Australian principals supplemented by guest singers and conductors.
, formerly associated with London's Royal Opera House
, became Musical Director, and his first new production was the Australian premiere of Richard Strauss
's Der Rosenkavalier
at the Princess Theatre, Melbourne
, followed closely by Prokofiev's War and Peace
as the opening night performance of the Sydney Opera House
, a short time before the building's official opening.
The Sydney Opera House, as well as quickly becoming a distinctive cultural landmark in that city, gave the company a permanent performance home and thus helped to expand its repertoire and develop local audiences. Audiences were certainly boosted by Joan Sutherland's performances with The Australian Opera in Offenbach's The Tales of Hoffmann. In addition, in the 1974 season three Australian works were performed: The Affair by Felix Werder
, Lenz by Larry Sitsky
, and Rites of Passage
by Peter Sculthorpe
. (Rites of Passage was to have been the inaugural opera presentation at the Sydney Opera House, but was not ready in time.)
By 1976, Richard Bonynge had become Musical Director and he led the company on its first overseas tour to New Zealand with Verdi's Rigoletto
and Janáček's Jenůfa
, the latter conducted by Georg Tintner. This was followed in 1978 by the first Australian Opera country tour with orchestra to north-eastern New South Wales (Don Pasquale
with the Queensland Theatre Orchestra, conducted by Tintner). From 1977 to 1990, the resident director was Elke Neidhardt
.
In 1977, the New South Wales Friends of the Australian Opera and the Australian Elizabethan Theatre Trust established the Armstrong-Martin Scholarship to further the musical education of professional opera singers.
During the 1980s, after many years of recording performances by the Australian Opera for television, the Australian Broadcasting Corporation
(ABC) and The Australian Opera presented their first live simulcast, Johann Strauss's Die Fledermaus
, and it was seen by more than two million people. Over the following years a series of simulcasts reached millions of Australian homes.
On the popular front, a big box office success was the appearance of Luciano Pavarotti
and Joan Sutherland at the Concert Hall of the Sydney Opera House in 1983, with the Elizabethan Sydney Orchestra conducted by Richard Bonynge (the sister orchestra in Melbourne was known as the Elizabethan Melbourne Orchestra. Now they are known respectively as the Australian Opera and Ballet Orchestra
, Sydney and Orchestra Victoria
, Melbourne). This nationally simulcast performance broke box office records for an indoor event. Another successful concert with Sutherland and Marilyn Horne
was held in the Concert Hall.
In addition, several innovative features characterised this period of the 1980s. The first "Esso Opera in the Park" in the Sydney Domain
quickly became an annual event, and it is now called "Opera in the Domain". Typically, it attracts almost 100,000 people each year. A similar annual outdoor event, which attracts more than 25,000 people, is held in Melbourne. The second was the establishment of "The Esso Young Artists' Development Program" for the Australian Opera while the third was the "Australian Compositions Program" launched with a new production of Brian Howard's Metamorphosis.
Also another innovative program, "The National Opera Workshop", was established to enable selected Australian composers to present works in workshop form with artists from the Australian Opera. Lastly, "OperaAction", the "Youth Education Program" established a program of events, including three Youth performances of Puccini's Madama Butterfly
and, in 1986, Winds of the Solstice, an original youth opera created by 70 students working on libretto
, music, choreography and orchestration and presented at the Sydney Opera House.
The company re-organised its administration gradually throughout the decade, appointing Moffatt Oxenbould
as Artistic Director in 1984, and announcing that Richard Bonynge would become Musical Director Emeritus and Principal Guest Conductor from 1987, after his decade long contract as musical director expired.
In 1988, in association with the Australian Bicentennial
Authority, the company toured Brisbane, Darwin, Hobart, Melbourne, Perth and the National Opera Workshop in Melbourne with The Ra Project, a music-theatre work composed with the direct participation from the earliest stages of the singers who performed it and marking director Baz Luhrmann
's first association with the Australian Opera.
Dame Joan Sutherland gave her farewell performances for the Australian Opera in 1990 in a production of Meyerbeer
's Les Huguenots
. Two years later, the company named its major rehearsal studio after Dame Joan.
The early 1990s were to see two important changes in the way that the company worked: firstly, in 1991, with the formation of the "Artistic Associates of The Australian Opera", a body of people was created which comprised some of the most important figures in the Australian musical and performing arts world. Secondly, the Australian Opera and Ballet Orchestra was integrated with the Australian Opera to produce a permanent opera and ballet orchestra for the company.
In its first performances outside Australasia in 1994, the company performed Britten's A Midsummer Night's Dream
at the Edinburgh International Festival
. In addition, the Baz Luhrmann production of La bohème
was screened over more than 300 North American television stations, followed by worldwide video release and a Broadway version.
(VSO) companies in 1996, following the financial collapse of the Melbourne based VSO. Adrian Collette was appointed General Manager of the new company, and evolved a three year plan to restructure the company involving twice yearly seasons in both Sydney and Melbourne, integrating the OA and VSO staff and planning a viable financial structure so as to manage the inherited debt.
The first few years of the present century saw the retirement of Moffatt Oxenbould, Opera Australia's Artistic Director for 15 years, and the appointment of Simone Young
as Musical Director. To honour the retiring director, the Young Artists' Program was renamed the "Moffatt Oxenbould Young Artists' Development Program". Immediately on taking up her position in 2001, Simone Young appointed the Australian director Stuart Maunder to the position of Artistic Director. Young proceeded to develop the company's core repertoire, including more German operas in the repertoire and diversifying the types of productions mounted and the standards of international and local artists employed. By late 2002 however, the OA Board, faced with mounting deficits, announced that Young's future visions for the company were 'unsustainable' and decided not to renew her contract after the end of 2003.
At the end of 2003, Richard Hickox
was named Music Director-designate of Opera Australia, and took up the post full-time from January 2005. During his tenure, Hickox diversified the repertoire with the addition of more 20th century works such as The Love for Three Oranges, The Makropulos Affair, Rusalka
and Arabella
, recording live performances of many of these works for Chandos Records
. The company's 50th anniversary was celebrated in 2006 with a Gala Concert in which tributes were paid to Joan Sutherland and Richard Bonynge, the principal artists, the chorus, production staff and the Australian Opera and Ballet Orchestra (the AOBO) for their 'artistry and talent' and the 'ensemble nature' of the company. In mid-2008, Hickox and Opera Australia were criticised for what was perceived as a decline in artistic standards since the start of Hickox's tenure. On returning to the UK in November 2008 following the Sydney Winter Season, Hickox died suddenly from a heart attack after conducting a rehearsal in Swansea. On 30 June 2009, Lyndon Terracini
was announced as the new Artistic Director.
(1985); Metamorphosis by Brian Howard (1985); Voss
by Richard Meale
(1986); Whitsunday by Howard (1988); Mer de glace by Richard Meale (1992); The Golem by Larry Sitsky
(1993); The Eighth Wonder
by Alan John
(1995); Summer of the Seventeenth Doll
by Richard Mills
(1999); Batavia
by Richard Mills (2001); Love in the Age of Therapy by Paul Grabowsky
(OzOpera 2002); Lindy
by Moya Henderson
(2003); Madeline Lee
by John Haddock (2004); Bliss
(2010) by Brett Dean
. Bliss was also performed at the Edinburgh International Festival
and Hamburg State Opera
.
Under Moffatt Oxenbould, a yearly National Opera Workshop was devised which enabled selected composers and creators to "access the resources and expertise of the National Company" and receive advice and encouragement from operatic experts. Since 2000 this workshop situation has ceased and a commissioning panel has been appointed to select future promising works.
. This increase in video content has also meant an increase in participation on YouTube
, including the more regular release of content on the Opera Australia YouTube channel. Alongside these changes, the company has also increased its presence on social media
outlets Twitter
and Facebook
in 2010 and 2011, providing regular updates and answering customer questions. 2011 also saw the launch of the Weekly Audience Review competition as part of the Opera Australia Blog, providing incentives for audience members to post reviews of Opera Australia productions online, including pass giveaways and publication of reviews on the blog.
Opera
Opera is an art form in which singers and musicians perform a dramatic work combining text and musical score, usually in a theatrical setting. Opera incorporates many of the elements of spoken theatre, such as acting, scenery, and costumes and sometimes includes dance...
company in Australia
Australia
Australia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...
. Based in Sydney, its performance season at the Sydney Opera House
Sydney Opera House
The Sydney Opera House is a multi-venue performing arts centre in the Australian city of Sydney. It was conceived and largely built by Danish architect Jørn Utzon, finally opening in 1973 after a long gestation starting with his competition-winning design in 1957...
runs for approximately eight months of the year, with the remainder of its time spent in the The Arts Centre
The Arts Centre (Melbourne)
The Victorian Arts Centre is a performing arts centre consisting of a complex of theatres and concert halls in the Melbourne Arts Precinct, located in the inner Melbourne suburb of Southbank in Victoria, Australia....
in Melbourne (where it is accompanied by Orchestra Victoria
Orchestra Victoria
Orchestra Victoria is an orchestra based in Victoria, Australia. In addition to its own concert and education events, it is the performance partner of the following major performing arts companies: The Australian Ballet, Opera Australia and Victorian Opera...
). In 2004, the company gave 226 performances in its subscription seasons in Sydney and Melbourne, attended by more than 294,000 people.
Like most opera companies, it is funded by a combination of government money, corporate sponsorship, private philanthropy, and ticket sales. The proportion of its revenue from ticket sales is considerably higher than that of most companies, approximately 75 per cent. The company is perhaps best known internationally for its association with Dame Joan Sutherland
Joan Sutherland
Dame Joan Alston Sutherland, OM, AC, DBE was an Australian dramatic coloratura soprano noted for her contribution to the renaissance of the bel canto repertoire from the late 1950s through to the 1980s....
, and for Baz Luhrmann
Baz Luhrmann
Mark Anthony "Baz" Luhrmann is an Australian film director, screenwriter, and producer best known for The Red Curtain Trilogy, which includes his films Strictly Ballroom, William Shakespeare's Romeo + Juliet and Moulin Rouge!...
's production of Puccini
Giacomo Puccini
Giacomo Antonio Domenico Michele Secondo Maria Puccini was an Italian composer whose operas, including La bohème, Tosca, Madama Butterfly, and Turandot, are among the most frequently performed in the standard repertoire...
's La bohème
La bohème
La bohème is an opera in four acts,Puccini called the divisions quadro, a tableau or "image", rather than atto . by Giacomo Puccini to an Italian libretto by Luigi Illica and Giuseppe Giacosa, based on Scènes de la vie de bohème by Henri Murger...
in the early 1990s.
By the end of 2004, Opera Australia provided employment to approximately 1,300 Australians. OzOpera (Opera Australia's education, access and development arm) presented the La bohème production in Victoria
Victoria (Australia)
Victoria is the second most populous state in Australia. Geographically the smallest mainland state, Victoria is bordered by New South Wales, South Australia, and Tasmania on Boundary Islet to the north, west and south respectively....
, Northern Territory
Northern Territory
The Northern Territory is a federal territory of Australia, occupying much of the centre of the mainland continent, as well as the central northern regions...
and Western Australia, attended by 13,350 people, while OzOpera's Schools Company performed to over 63,500 primary age children in more than 360 performances in urban and regional New South Wales and Victoria. Many thousands of Australians also experienced the work of their national opera company through television, radio, video, compact disc, DVD, and the annual free performance of opera in the Domain
The Domain, Sydney
The Domain is 34 hectares of open space in Sydney, New South Wales, Australia. It is located on the eastern edge of the Sydney central business district, near Woolloomooloo. The Domain adjoins the Royal Botanic Gardens and is managed by the Royal Botanic Gardens Trust, a division of the New South...
in Sydney.
Australian Opera Company, 1956–57
In 1956, the Australian Opera Company was formed in Sydney under the auspices of the Australian Elizabethan Theatre TrustAustralian Elizabethan Theatre Trust
The Australian Elizabethan Theatre Trust was set up in September 1954 under the guidance of H. C. ‘Nugget’ Coombs, Governor of the Commonwealth Bank, Sir Charles Moses General Manager, Australian Broadcasting Commission and John Douglas Pringle, Editor of The Sydney Morning Herald. It aimed to...
. It commemorated the Mozart
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart , baptismal name Johannes Chrysostomus Wolfgangus Theophilus Mozart , was a prolific and influential composer of the Classical era. He composed over 600 works, many acknowledged as pinnacles of symphonic, concertante, chamber, piano, operatic, and choral music...
bicentenary by presenting four Mozart operas in all capital cities, travelling more than 10,000 kilometres, and giving 169 performances. A truly national company was in place.
Elizabethan Theatre Trust Opera Company, 1957–70
By 1957, it changed its name to the Elizabethan Theatre Trust Opera Company.In 1959 the company's laid-off singers gave the first of many regional tours (presented by state Arts Councils) with Rossini's The Barber of Seville
The Barber of Seville
The Barber of Seville, or The Futile Precaution is an opera buffa in two acts by Gioachino Rossini with a libretto by Cesare Sterbini. The libretto was based on Pierre Beaumarchais's comedy Le Barbier de Séville , which was originally an opéra comique, or a mixture of spoken play with music...
using reduced scenery and conducted from the piano by Georg Tintner
Georg Tintner
Georg Tintner CM was an Austrian-born conductor whose career was principally in New Zealand, Australia, and Canada....
(Victoria, New South Wales, Queensland). Subsequent Arts Council tours included Rigoletto
Rigoletto
Rigoletto is an opera in three acts by Giuseppe Verdi. The Italian libretto was written by Francesco Maria Piave based on the play Le roi s'amuse by Victor Hugo. It was first performed at La Fenice in Venice on March 11, 1851...
(1960; Victoria, Queensland, New South Wales), Così fan tutte
Così fan tutte
Così fan tutte, ossia La scuola degli amanti K. 588, is an opera buffa by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart first performed in 1790. The libretto was written by Lorenzo Da Ponte....
(1961; New South Wales, Queensland) and La traviata
La traviata
La traviata is an opera in three acts by Giuseppe Verdi set to an Italian libretto by Francesco Maria Piave. It is based on La dame aux Camélias , a play adapted from the novel by Alexandre Dumas, fils. The title La traviata means literally The Fallen Woman, or perhaps more figuratively, The Woman...
(1962; New South Wales, Queensland), all conducted by Tintner. However, by 1963 a permanent nucleus of singers and staff was retained throughout the year and the company had made appearances at regional festivals, including the Adelaide Festival
Adelaide Festival of Arts
The Adelaide Festival of Arts is an arts festival held biennially in the South Australian capital of Adelaide. Although locally considered to be one of the world's greatest celebrations of the arts, that is internationally renowned and the pre-eminent cultural event in Australia, it is actually...
. It was also able to establish the first Elizabethan Trust Orchestra for the company by 1967 with additional government aid.
A major milestone for the company was a television recording of Puccini's Tosca
Tosca
Tosca is an opera in three acts by Giacomo Puccini to an Italian libretto by Luigi Illica and Giuseppe Giacosa. It premiered at the Teatro Costanzi in Rome on 14 January 1900...
filmed in 1968 at the Adelaide Festival
Adelaide Festival of Arts
The Adelaide Festival of Arts is an arts festival held biennially in the South Australian capital of Adelaide. Although locally considered to be one of the world's greatest celebrations of the arts, that is internationally renowned and the pre-eminent cultural event in Australia, it is actually...
. This starred Tito Gobbi
Tito Gobbi
Tito Gobbi was an Italian operatic baritone with an international reputation.-Biography:Tito Gobbi was born in Bassano del Grappa and studied law at the University of Padua before he trained as a singer. Giulio Crimi, a well-known Italian tenor of a previous generation, was Gobbi's teacher in Rome...
as Scarpia alongside two Australian singers, soprano Marie Collier
Marie Collier
Marie Collier was an Australian operatic soprano.Marie Collier was born in Ballarat, Victoria. She first came to prominence in 1952 singing the role of Santuzza in Cavalleria rusticana for the National Theatre Opera company in Melbourne...
in the title role, and tenor Donald Smith as Cavaradossi, with the Italian conductor Carlo Felice Cillario
Carlo Felice Cillario
Carlo Felice Cillario was an Argentinian-born Italian conductor of international renown.Born Carlos Felix Cillario in San Rafael, Mendoza, Argentina, he went to Italy in 1923, where he studied the violin and composition at the Bologna Conservatorio. He hoped to become a soloist but a wrist injury...
conducting. This was the commencement of a long and fruitful association between the Australian Opera and Maestro Cillario. Some of his first rehearsals in the country involved conducting the Elizabethan Sydney Orchestra and the Australian Opera Chorus, both newly formed and on permanent contracts.
While not yet appearing with this company, Joan Sutherland
Joan Sutherland
Dame Joan Alston Sutherland, OM, AC, DBE was an Australian dramatic coloratura soprano noted for her contribution to the renaissance of the bel canto repertoire from the late 1950s through to the 1980s....
, then an internationally known Australian soprano, and her husband, the conductor Richard Bonynge
Richard Bonynge
Richard Alan Bonynge, AO, CBE is an Australian conductor and pianist.Bonynge was born in Sydney and educated at Sydney Boys High School before studying piano at the Royal College of Music in London. He gave up his music scholarship, continuing his private piano studies, and became a coach for...
, helped the cause of opera in general in Australia during the 1960s. Sutherland's name was also linked to the progress of the Sydney Opera House, begun in 1957 and still undergoing a lengthy and controversial construction. By the time 'La Stupenda' appeared there in 1974, one year after the opening of the theatre, the company was a leading repertory company with a large chorus and a roster of experienced Australian principals supplemented by guest singers and conductors.
The Australian Opera, 1970–96
In 1970, the company became known as The Australian Opera. The 1970s saw considerable changes both in administration and location. In 1972, Edward DownesEdward Downes
Sir Edward Thomas "Ted" Downes, CBE was an English conductor, specialising in opera.He was associated with the Royal Opera House from 1952, and with Opera Australia from 1970. He was also well known for his long working relationship with the BBC Philharmonic and for working with the Netherlands...
, formerly associated with London's Royal Opera House
Royal Opera House
The Royal Opera House is an opera house and major performing arts venue in Covent Garden, central London. The large building is often referred to as simply "Covent Garden", after a previous use of the site of the opera house's original construction in 1732. It is the home of The Royal Opera, The...
, became Musical Director, and his first new production was the Australian premiere of Richard Strauss
Richard Strauss
Richard Georg Strauss was a leading German composer of the late Romantic and early modern eras. He is known for his operas, which include Der Rosenkavalier and Salome; his Lieder, especially his Four Last Songs; and his tone poems and orchestral works, such as Death and Transfiguration, Till...
's Der Rosenkavalier
Der Rosenkavalier
Der Rosenkavalier is a comic opera in three acts by Richard Strauss to an original German libretto by Hugo von Hofmannsthal. It is loosely adapted from the novel Les amours du chevalier de Faublas by Louvet de Couvrai and Molière’s comedy Monsieur de Pourceaugnac...
at the Princess Theatre, Melbourne
Princess Theatre, Melbourne
The Princess Theatre is a 1488-seat theatre in Melbourne, Australia.It is listed by the National Trust of Australia and is on the Victorian Heritage Register.-History:...
, followed closely by Prokofiev's War and Peace
War and Peace (Prokofiev)
War and Peace is an opera in two parts , sometimes arranged as five acts, by Sergei Prokofiev to a Russian libretto by the composer and Mira Mendelson, based on the novel War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy...
as the opening night performance of the Sydney Opera House
Sydney Opera House
The Sydney Opera House is a multi-venue performing arts centre in the Australian city of Sydney. It was conceived and largely built by Danish architect Jørn Utzon, finally opening in 1973 after a long gestation starting with his competition-winning design in 1957...
, a short time before the building's official opening.
The Sydney Opera House, as well as quickly becoming a distinctive cultural landmark in that city, gave the company a permanent performance home and thus helped to expand its repertoire and develop local audiences. Audiences were certainly boosted by Joan Sutherland's performances with The Australian Opera in Offenbach's The Tales of Hoffmann. In addition, in the 1974 season three Australian works were performed: The Affair by Felix Werder
Felix Werder
Felix Werder is an Australian-based German composer of classical and electronic music; also a noted critic and educator. The son of a distinguished liturgical composer, he has composed all his life; he has an international reputation and is one of Australia's most performed composers...
, Lenz by Larry Sitsky
Larry Sitsky
Lazar Sitsky AM, usually referred to as Larry Sitsky, born 10 September 1934, is an Australian composer, pianist, and music educator and scholar...
, and Rites of Passage
Rites of Passage (Sculthorpe)
Rites of Passage is a music theatre work written by the Australian composer Peter Sculthorpe in 1972-73. It is often categorised as an opera, but it does not conform to the traditional concept of opera...
by Peter Sculthorpe
Peter Sculthorpe
Peter Joshua Sculthorpe AO OBE is an Australian composer. Much of his music has resulted from an interest in the music of Australia's neighbours as well as from the impulse to bring together aspects of native Australian music with that of the heritage of the West...
. (Rites of Passage was to have been the inaugural opera presentation at the Sydney Opera House, but was not ready in time.)
By 1976, Richard Bonynge had become Musical Director and he led the company on its first overseas tour to New Zealand with Verdi's Rigoletto
Rigoletto
Rigoletto is an opera in three acts by Giuseppe Verdi. The Italian libretto was written by Francesco Maria Piave based on the play Le roi s'amuse by Victor Hugo. It was first performed at La Fenice in Venice on March 11, 1851...
and Janáček's Jenůfa
Jenufa
Jenůfa is an opera in three acts by Leoš Janáček to a Czech libretto by the composer, based on the play Její pastorkyňa by Gabriela Preissová. It was first performed at the Brno Theater, Brno, 21 January 1904...
, the latter conducted by Georg Tintner. This was followed in 1978 by the first Australian Opera country tour with orchestra to north-eastern New South Wales (Don Pasquale
Don Pasquale
Don Pasquale is an opera buffa, or comic opera, in three acts by Gaetano Donizetti. The librettist Giovanni Ruffini wrote the Italian language libretto after Angelo Anelli's libretto for Stefano Pavesi's Ser Marcantonio ....
with the Queensland Theatre Orchestra, conducted by Tintner). From 1977 to 1990, the resident director was Elke Neidhardt
Elke Neidhardt
Elke Cordelia Neidhardt AM is a German-Australian actress and opera and theatre director. She has appeared in theatre, television and feature films in Germany, Austria, France and Australia, and has directed operas in Zurich, Amsterdam, Aix-en-Provence, Salzburg, Vienna, Cologne and Australia...
.
In 1977, the New South Wales Friends of the Australian Opera and the Australian Elizabethan Theatre Trust established the Armstrong-Martin Scholarship to further the musical education of professional opera singers.
During the 1980s, after many years of recording performances by the Australian Opera for television, the Australian Broadcasting Corporation
Australian Broadcasting Corporation
The Australian Broadcasting Corporation, commonly referred to as "the ABC" , is Australia's national public broadcaster...
(ABC) and The Australian Opera presented their first live simulcast, Johann Strauss's Die Fledermaus
Die Fledermaus
Die Fledermaus is an operetta composed by Johann Strauss II to a German libretto by Karl Haffner and Richard Genée.- Literary sources :...
, and it was seen by more than two million people. Over the following years a series of simulcasts reached millions of Australian homes.
On the popular front, a big box office success was the appearance of Luciano Pavarotti
Luciano Pavarotti
right|thumb|Luciano Pavarotti performing at the opening of the Constantine Palace in [[Strelna]], 31 May 2003. The concert was part of the celebrations for the 300th anniversary of [[St...
and Joan Sutherland at the Concert Hall of the Sydney Opera House in 1983, with the Elizabethan Sydney Orchestra conducted by Richard Bonynge (the sister orchestra in Melbourne was known as the Elizabethan Melbourne Orchestra. Now they are known respectively as the Australian Opera and Ballet Orchestra
Australian Opera and Ballet Orchestra
The Australian Opera and Ballet Orchestra is one of two full time, permanent orchestras employed jointly to provide music for Opera Australia and The Australian Ballet, the other is known as Orchestra Victoria...
, Sydney and Orchestra Victoria
Orchestra Victoria
Orchestra Victoria is an orchestra based in Victoria, Australia. In addition to its own concert and education events, it is the performance partner of the following major performing arts companies: The Australian Ballet, Opera Australia and Victorian Opera...
, Melbourne). This nationally simulcast performance broke box office records for an indoor event. Another successful concert with Sutherland and Marilyn Horne
Marilyn Horne
Marilyn Horne is an American mezzo-soprano opera singer. She specialized in roles requiring a large sound, beauty of tone, excellent breath support, and the ability to execute difficult coloratura passages....
was held in the Concert Hall.
In addition, several innovative features characterised this period of the 1980s. The first "Esso Opera in the Park" in the Sydney Domain
The Domain, Sydney
The Domain is 34 hectares of open space in Sydney, New South Wales, Australia. It is located on the eastern edge of the Sydney central business district, near Woolloomooloo. The Domain adjoins the Royal Botanic Gardens and is managed by the Royal Botanic Gardens Trust, a division of the New South...
quickly became an annual event, and it is now called "Opera in the Domain". Typically, it attracts almost 100,000 people each year. A similar annual outdoor event, which attracts more than 25,000 people, is held in Melbourne. The second was the establishment of "The Esso Young Artists' Development Program" for the Australian Opera while the third was the "Australian Compositions Program" launched with a new production of Brian Howard's Metamorphosis.
Also another innovative program, "The National Opera Workshop", was established to enable selected Australian composers to present works in workshop form with artists from the Australian Opera. Lastly, "OperaAction", the "Youth Education Program" established a program of events, including three Youth performances of Puccini's Madama Butterfly
Madama Butterfly
Madama Butterfly is an opera in three acts by Giacomo Puccini, with an Italian libretto by Luigi Illica and Giuseppe Giacosa. Puccini based his opera in part on the short story "Madame Butterfly" by John Luther Long, which was dramatized by David Belasco...
and, in 1986, Winds of the Solstice, an original youth opera created by 70 students working on libretto
Libretto
A libretto is the text used in an extended musical work such as an opera, operetta, masque, oratorio, cantata, or musical. The term "libretto" is also sometimes used to refer to the text of major liturgical works, such as mass, requiem, and sacred cantata, or even the story line of a...
, music, choreography and orchestration and presented at the Sydney Opera House.
The company re-organised its administration gradually throughout the decade, appointing Moffatt Oxenbould
Moffatt Oxenbould
Moffatt Benjamin Oxenbould AM is an Australian opera director.He was Artistic Director of Opera Australia from 1984 until his retirement in 1999. He had been part of the company since he graduated from the National Institute of Dramatic Art in 1962...
as Artistic Director in 1984, and announcing that Richard Bonynge would become Musical Director Emeritus and Principal Guest Conductor from 1987, after his decade long contract as musical director expired.
In 1988, in association with the Australian Bicentennial
Australian Bicentenary
The bicentenary of Australia was celebrated in 1970 on the 200th anniversary of Captain James Cook landing and claiming the land, and again in 1988 to celebrate 200 years of permanent European settlement.-1970:...
Authority, the company toured Brisbane, Darwin, Hobart, Melbourne, Perth and the National Opera Workshop in Melbourne with The Ra Project, a music-theatre work composed with the direct participation from the earliest stages of the singers who performed it and marking director Baz Luhrmann
Baz Luhrmann
Mark Anthony "Baz" Luhrmann is an Australian film director, screenwriter, and producer best known for The Red Curtain Trilogy, which includes his films Strictly Ballroom, William Shakespeare's Romeo + Juliet and Moulin Rouge!...
's first association with the Australian Opera.
Dame Joan Sutherland gave her farewell performances for the Australian Opera in 1990 in a production of Meyerbeer
Giacomo Meyerbeer
Giacomo Meyerbeer was a noted German opera composer, and the first great exponent of "grand opera." At his peak in the 1830s and 1840s, he was the most famous and successful composer of opera in Europe, yet he is rarely performed today.-Early years:He was born to a Jewish family in Tasdorf , near...
's Les Huguenots
Les Huguenots
Les Huguenots is a French opera by Giacomo Meyerbeer, one of the most popular and spectacular examples of the style of grand opera. The opera is in five acts and premiered in Paris in 1836. The libretto was written by Eugène Scribe and Émile Deschamps....
. Two years later, the company named its major rehearsal studio after Dame Joan.
The early 1990s were to see two important changes in the way that the company worked: firstly, in 1991, with the formation of the "Artistic Associates of The Australian Opera", a body of people was created which comprised some of the most important figures in the Australian musical and performing arts world. Secondly, the Australian Opera and Ballet Orchestra was integrated with the Australian Opera to produce a permanent opera and ballet orchestra for the company.
In its first performances outside Australasia in 1994, the company performed Britten's A Midsummer Night's Dream
A Midsummer Night's Dream (opera)
A Midsummer Night's Dream is an opera with music by Benjamin Britten and set to a libretto adapted by the composer and Peter Pears from William Shakespeare's play, A Midsummer Night's Dream...
at the Edinburgh International Festival
Edinburgh International Festival
The Edinburgh International Festival is a festival of performing arts that takes place in the city of Edinburgh, Scotland, over three weeks from around the middle of August. By invitation from the Festival Director, the International Festival brings top class performers of music , theatre, opera...
. In addition, the Baz Luhrmann production of La bohème
La bohème
La bohème is an opera in four acts,Puccini called the divisions quadro, a tableau or "image", rather than atto . by Giacomo Puccini to an Italian libretto by Luigi Illica and Giuseppe Giacosa, based on Scènes de la vie de bohème by Henri Murger...
was screened over more than 300 North American television stations, followed by worldwide video release and a Broadway version.
Opera Australia, since 1996
Opera Australia (OA) was formed by the merger of the Australian Opera and the Victoria State OperaVictoria State Opera
The Victoria State Opera, based in Melbourne, Australia, where it was founded in 1962 as the Victorian Opera Company, collapsed in 1996 due to financial difficulties. At this point, the former Australian Opera merged with this company and renamed itself Opera Australia, taking on the...
(VSO) companies in 1996, following the financial collapse of the Melbourne based VSO. Adrian Collette was appointed General Manager of the new company, and evolved a three year plan to restructure the company involving twice yearly seasons in both Sydney and Melbourne, integrating the OA and VSO staff and planning a viable financial structure so as to manage the inherited debt.
The first few years of the present century saw the retirement of Moffatt Oxenbould, Opera Australia's Artistic Director for 15 years, and the appointment of Simone Young
Simone Young
Simone Margaret Young AM is an Australian conductor. She is music director of the Hamburg Philharmonic and general manager of the Hamburg State Opera...
as Musical Director. To honour the retiring director, the Young Artists' Program was renamed the "Moffatt Oxenbould Young Artists' Development Program". Immediately on taking up her position in 2001, Simone Young appointed the Australian director Stuart Maunder to the position of Artistic Director. Young proceeded to develop the company's core repertoire, including more German operas in the repertoire and diversifying the types of productions mounted and the standards of international and local artists employed. By late 2002 however, the OA Board, faced with mounting deficits, announced that Young's future visions for the company were 'unsustainable' and decided not to renew her contract after the end of 2003.
At the end of 2003, Richard Hickox
Richard Hickox
Richard Sidney Hickox CBE was an English conductor of choral, orchestral and operatic music.-Early life:Hickox was born in Stokenchurch in Buckinghamshire into a musical family...
was named Music Director-designate of Opera Australia, and took up the post full-time from January 2005. During his tenure, Hickox diversified the repertoire with the addition of more 20th century works such as The Love for Three Oranges, The Makropulos Affair, Rusalka
Rusalka (opera)
Rusalka is an opera by Antonín Dvořák. The Czech libretto was written by the poet Jaroslav Kvapil based on the fairy tales of Karel Jaromír Erben and Božena Němcová. Rusalka is one of the most successful Czech operas, and represents a cornerstone of the repertoire of Czech opera houses...
and Arabella
Arabella
Arabella is a lyric comedy or opera in 3 acts by Richard Strauss to a German libretto by Hugo von Hofmannsthal, their sixth and last operatic collaboration. It was first performed on 1 July 1933, at the Dresden Sächsisches Staatstheater....
, recording live performances of many of these works for Chandos Records
Chandos Records
Chandos Records is an independent classical music recording company based in Colchester, Essex, in the United Kingdom, founded in 1979 by Brian Couzens.- Background :...
. The company's 50th anniversary was celebrated in 2006 with a Gala Concert in which tributes were paid to Joan Sutherland and Richard Bonynge, the principal artists, the chorus, production staff and the Australian Opera and Ballet Orchestra (the AOBO) for their 'artistry and talent' and the 'ensemble nature' of the company. In mid-2008, Hickox and Opera Australia were criticised for what was perceived as a decline in artistic standards since the start of Hickox's tenure. On returning to the UK in November 2008 following the Sydney Winter Season, Hickox died suddenly from a heart attack after conducting a rehearsal in Swansea. On 30 June 2009, Lyndon Terracini
Lyndon Terracini
Lyndon Terracini is an operatic baritone and current Artistic Director of Opera Australia.Terracini's professional operatic debut was in 1976, as "Sid' in The Australian Opera's Albert Herring at the Sydney Opera House....
was announced as the new Artistic Director.
Educational outreach
OzOpera was established after the merger of the AO with the VSO in 1996 under the Directorship of Lindy Hume. Its aim is to present opera to audiences throughout metropolitan and regional Australia. Additionally it presents schools performances in primary schools across New South Wales and Victoria, adapting large-scale scores to suit young audiences. In 2009 it is expected that OzOpera will enable over 100,000 people to experience opera firsthand.Modern Australian opera
Opera Australia is committed to the long term development and performance of modern Australian operas. Since 1974, OA has fully staged 12 new Australian operas and workshopped over 20 new works in various stages of development. The main new works staged by the company have been The Little Mermaid by Anne BoydAnne Boyd
Anne Elizabeth Boyd AM is an Australian composer and Professor of Music at the University of Sydney.-Early life:Anne Boyd was born in Sydney to James Boyd and Annie Freda Deason Boyd ....
(1985); Metamorphosis by Brian Howard (1985); Voss
Voss (opera)
Voss is an opera by Australian composer Richard Meale with libretto by David Malouf. It is an adaptation of Patrick White's novel of the same name...
by Richard Meale
Richard Meale
Richard Graham Meale, AM, MBE was an Australian composer of instrumental works and operas.-Biography:Meale was born in Sydney and studied piano with Winifred Burston at the NSW State Conservatorium of Music, as well as clarinet, harp, music history and theory, before studying at the University of...
(1986); Whitsunday by Howard (1988); Mer de glace by Richard Meale (1992); The Golem by Larry Sitsky
Larry Sitsky
Lazar Sitsky AM, usually referred to as Larry Sitsky, born 10 September 1934, is an Australian composer, pianist, and music educator and scholar...
(1993); The Eighth Wonder
The Eighth Wonder
The Eighth Wonder is an opera by Alan John and with a libretto by Dennis Watkins. It was premiered at the Sydney Opera House on October 14, 1995 in the presence of the composer and librettist.-Plot:...
by Alan John
Alan John
Alan John is an Australian composer. He studied music at the University of Sydney, graduating in 1980. His compositions include original music for various plays, films and TV series , and the musical theatre works Jonah Jones, Orlando Rourke, and the musical Snugglepot and...
(1995); Summer of the Seventeenth Doll
Summer of the Seventeenth Doll (opera)
Summer of the Seventeenth Doll is a chamber opera in two acts by Richard Mills to a libretto by Peter Goldsworthy, based on the play of the same name by Ray Lawler. The opera was commissioned by the Victoria State Opera and premiered on 19 October 1996 at the Playhousein Melbourne. It lasts about...
by Richard Mills
Richard Mills
Richard John Mills AM, DMus BA Qld, is an Australian conductor and composer. He currently works as Artistic Director of the West Australian Opera and Artistic Consultant with Orchestra Victoria...
(1999); Batavia
Batavia (opera)
Batavia is an opera in three acts and a prologue by Richard Mills to a libretto by Peter Goldsworthy,commissioned by Opera Australia. The plot is based on the historical events surrounding the Dutchsailing ship Batavia....
by Richard Mills (2001); Love in the Age of Therapy by Paul Grabowsky
Paul Grabowsky
-Biography:Grabowsky was born on 27 September 1958 in Lae, Papua New Guinea; his father Alistair had lived in Papua New Guinea with his wife Charlotte since the 1930s working on oil rigs, building roads, flying planes and playing the drums...
(OzOpera 2002); Lindy
Lindy (opera)
Lindy is an opera in two acts by Australian composer Moya Henderson to an English libretto by Judith Rodriguez.It premiered on 25 October 2002 at the Sydney Opera House.-Roles:-Synopsis:The plot is based on the disappearance of Lindy...
by Moya Henderson
Moya Henderson
Moya Henderson is an Australian composer.A graduate of the University of Queensland, Henderson also studied in Germany with Karlheinz Stockhausen after which she became a lecturer at the University of Sydney...
(2003); Madeline Lee
Madeline Lee (opera)
Madeline Lee is a one act opera, composed by John Haddock to a libretto written jointly by the composer and Michael Campbell. It premiered at the Sydney Opera House on 8 October 2004 in an Opera Australia production directed by Michael Campbell and conducted by Tom Woods.-Plot:The story of the...
by John Haddock (2004); Bliss
Bliss (opera)
Bliss is an opera in three acts by Brett Dean to a libretto by Amanda Holden. The libretto is based on Peter Carey's novel Bliss which had been made into the 1985 film Bliss. The opera premiered at the Sydney Opera House on 12 March 2010...
(2010) by Brett Dean
Brett Dean
Brett Dean is a contemporary Australian composer, violist and conductor.-Career:Dean studied at the Queensland Conservatorium where he received a Medal of Excellence. From 1985 to 1999, Dean was a violist in the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra. In 2000, he decided to pursue a career as a freelance...
. Bliss was also performed at the Edinburgh International Festival
Edinburgh International Festival
The Edinburgh International Festival is a festival of performing arts that takes place in the city of Edinburgh, Scotland, over three weeks from around the middle of August. By invitation from the Festival Director, the International Festival brings top class performers of music , theatre, opera...
and Hamburg State Opera
Hamburg State Opera
The Hamburg State Opera is one of the leading opera companies in Germany.Opera in Hamburg dates back to 2 January 1678 when the "Opern-Theatrum" was inaugurated with a performance of a biblical Singspiel by Johann Theile...
.
Under Moffatt Oxenbould, a yearly National Opera Workshop was devised which enabled selected composers and creators to "access the resources and expertise of the National Company" and receive advice and encouragement from operatic experts. Since 2000 this workshop situation has ceased and a commissioning panel has been appointed to select future promising works.
Digital strategy
In 2011, Opera Australia launched a new digital strategy in order to bring high-definition recordings of its operas to cinemas (in collaboration with CinemaLive), as well as launching DVD, Blu-ray and CD releases on its own label and broadcasting these recordings on ABC TelevisionABC Television
ABC Television is a service of the Australian Broadcasting Corporation launched in 1956. As a public broadcasting broadcaster, the ABC provides four non-commercial channels within Australia, and a partially advertising-funded satellite channel overseas....
. This increase in video content has also meant an increase in participation on YouTube
YouTube
YouTube is a video-sharing website, created by three former PayPal employees in February 2005, on which users can upload, view and share videos....
, including the more regular release of content on the Opera Australia YouTube channel. Alongside these changes, the company has also increased its presence on social media
Social media
The term Social Media refers to the use of web-based and mobile technologies to turn communication into an interactive dialogue. Andreas Kaplan and Michael Haenlein define social media as "a group of Internet-based applications that build on the ideological and technological foundations of Web 2.0,...
outlets Twitter
Twitter
Twitter is an online social networking and microblogging service that enables its users to send and read text-based posts of up to 140 characters, informally known as "tweets".Twitter was created in March 2006 by Jack Dorsey and launched that July...
and Facebook
Facebook
Facebook is a social networking service and website launched in February 2004, operated and privately owned by Facebook, Inc. , Facebook has more than 800 million active users. Users must register before using the site, after which they may create a personal profile, add other users as...
in 2010 and 2011, providing regular updates and answering customer questions. 2011 also saw the launch of the Weekly Audience Review competition as part of the Opera Australia Blog, providing incentives for audience members to post reviews of Opera Australia productions online, including pass giveaways and publication of reviews on the blog.
External links
- Opera Australia
- The Australian Opera, operas performed during 1970–1996
- Bonynge looking to his Irish roots – Opera~Opera article 2005