Opera Australia
Many thousands of Australians also experience the company's work through television, radio, video, compact disc, DVD, and the annual free performance of opera in the Domain in Sydney.
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).
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 Argentinian born, Italian conductor Carlo Felice Cillario conducting.
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.
[1] 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.
In 1972, Edward Downes, 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.
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.
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.
[4] 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 by the singers who performed it and marking director Baz Luhrmann's first association with the Australian Opera.
Also in 1990, Baz Luhrmann's La bohème premiered in Sydney, establishing Cheryl Barker and David Hobson as important principals in the company.
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 later Broadway version.
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.
[12] 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.
[14] In 2011, Terracini gave a controversial speech as part of the annual Peggy Glanville-Hicks Address, in which he announced that Opera Australia had to change in order to survive.
"Opera companies and orchestras of significance world wide are closing at an alarming rate ... We can blithely ignore the fact ... or we can change ... brave programming is having the courage to programme what critics will criticise you for, but will make a genuine connection to a real audience.
[18] The harbour has since received annual stagings, followed by Madama Butterfly (2014), Aida (2015), and Turandot (2016), a new production of Carmen in 2017, La bohème (2018), West Side Story (2019), La Traviata (1920, 2021), The Phantom of the Opera (2022), Madama Butterfly (2023), West Side Story (2024)[19][20] In 2012, Opera Australia replaced the regular Gilbert and Sullivan productions that had formed part of the company's repertoire for some years with a series of Broadway musicals.
[21] An extensive philanthropic drive enabled the company to program its first full-length Ring Cycle, which was performed in Melbourne over four weeks at the end of 2013.
[22] After tickets to the event sold out in just one day, ABC Classic FM and Opera Australia announced the radio station would live broadcast the Ring Cycle to audiences across the country.
Opera Australia has released numerous video recordings, on VHS, DVD and BluRay, of whole productions and of thematic selections, including: Sources
