On 8 June 2020 he was appointed a Member of the Order of Australia (AM) for "significant service to the performing arts, particularly to music production.
"[1] In August of that year he was listed as one of The 7 Most Influential Music Producers of All Time by Mixdown Magazine's David Tomisch and Will Brewster.
[2][3] His mother Shirley, his father and an older sibling had moved from Darwin in the early 1950s to suburban Upwey and then Croydon.
[2][3] After the couple separated again Opitz and his sibling were cared for by various people before being placed in the Margaret Marr Memorial Home for Boys in Wynnum – run by the Methodists.
Under their tutelage he worked with Albert Productions artists AC/DC, Rose Tattoo, John Paul Young and Flash and the Pan.
[9][10] Warner Music's management offered Opitz the position as Head of A&R during 1980, while he was producing the East album for Cold Chisel.
[7] He left Warner in 1982 to buy Rhinoceros Studios in Sydney, with a commercial partner, and set up his own production company.
Over the next five years he produced albums for Jimmy Barnes, INXS, Models, Hoodoo Gurus, Australian Crawl, Noiseworks and the Reels.
He also produced the music for Kiss' US TV special/DVD release Rock the Nation in 2006 and Paul Stanley's solo project in 2007.
[14] In 2016, the Australian National University (ANU) spent $12 million to establish their School of Music with Opitz as a Visiting Fellow of that department.
[15] In August 2017 he was listed as one of The 7 Most Influential Music Producers of All Time by Mixdown Magazine's David Tomisch and Will Brewster.