FEATURE

Re-Imagining in To broaden its audience and justify its public funding, Opera Australia must change with the changing demography of the nation and relinquish its elitist nature, says

hen an artist understands how assumed no longer. We can blithely ignore this, to weave the text and the music and many practising artists in classical music are together to communicate every already doing so, or we can change. individual moment within a There is a small but passionate group musicalW and dramatic context to the audience, of people who believe only their opinions it is a wonderful and often awe-inspiring regarding the role of ‘their’ opera company are of experience. In fact there is nothing more importance. ‘All of is talking about it,’ one moving or thrilling than total music theatre. of them said to me recently, about a particular As the largest performing arts organisation production that, while artistically successful, in the country, Opera Australia is a leader in the sold only slightly more than 4,000 tickets. When cultural life of Australia; it not only delivers I pointed out that there were many more than the operatic art form to the widest possible 4,000 people living in Sydney, the response was, audience but also contextualises what the ‘Well, all of my friends have seen it.’ And that operatic form means to contemporary is the fundamental problem: everyone at my Australians. However, the current volatile ‘club’ has seen it and bugger those who aren’t cultural environment and artistic inertia have members of my club. diminished the importance of the making of This sense of patrician entitlement is not only art, particularly opera, and its connection with at odds with way of life but also the broader community. with contemporary Australia. Peter Brook, one of the greatest stage directors It is simply not acceptable in a democratic of his generation, in his extraordinary book in society for an arts organisation receiving $20 1973, The Empty Space, said, ‘Everything in opera million per year in funding from government must change.’ But while the rest of the world to play only to a few members of an elitist club. has changed dramatically, very little in opera In fact, any arts organisation receiving public has changed since the nineteenth century; in funds is obliged to justify that funding by many ways, the form has become captive to its including all members of society. Of course, own traditions and is peculiarly unaware of the a large audience does not necessarily equate with changes that have taken place around it. Lyndon Terracini is the Artistic Director of Elitist exclusivism Opera Australia. This in an edited version of Opera companies and orchestras worldwide the speech he delivered as the 2011 Speaker are closing at an alarming rate for a number of reasons (including the global financial crisis), but at the Annual Peggy Glanville-Hicks Address. the lack of change in the fundamental structure The entire text of the speech can be found of opera companies is an extremely important at the Opera Australia website contributing factor. We live in a very different (http://bit.ly/PGHAddress2012). time and the expectations of the past can be

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quality, or vice versa for that matter, but it is divided by race and income: comfortable white unacceptable from a purely equitable standpoint. suburbs and economically depressed black We at Opera Australia do our utmost to play suburbs (the western suburbs in Sydney) on one to as many people as possible (about 500,000 side and the northern and eastern suburbs on people in 2012). Fewer than 70 of our 1,600 the other. Ignoring these changes will see our employees are employed in administration; audiences decline dramatically. and 337 of the 354 performances planned Our food culture has voraciously embraced across Australia in 2012 will be on the main the changing demography; some of the most stages in Sydney, and Brisbane. Our innovative eating in the world can be found in programming is popular without being populist Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane. It’s a hybrid so that opera can once again be regarded as of extraordinary eating experiences. So why a popular art form in the context of a new haven’t the creative artists in music and theatre Australia. After all, it is a very different Australia replicated the success of our creative culinary we are living in compared to a few decades ago. colleagues—why are we so protective of our meat and three veg that we refuse to consider Changing demography the extraordinary tastes of Asia. (To be fair, After World War II, European migrants brought a number of small to medium performing arts to Australia their cultural history. They had, organisations are creating work that is much if not a regular connection to it, an understanding more representative of contemporary Australia.) of opera, ballet, chamber music, and the symphonic repertoire. More recent migrants Artistic styles do not have that same cultural or artistic The style of our performances is a complex heritage, but they bring with them very different conversation. We expect English or American artistic languages in music, theatre, dance and acting styles on our stages, and when we see indeed food. a Korean singer acting like a European or an The dramatically changed ethnic demography American we complain about over or poor of Australia’s east coast cities is not reflected in our audiences. The faces on our stages and in Figure 1: La bohème our orchestra pits do not represent accurately the faces on our streets. In fact, the narrow ethnicity of the audiences in our theatres is alarming. The successful production of La bohème, which played to 45,000 people in Melbourne and Sydney, had an African-American soprano and a Korean tenor singing the leading roles; we also had more audience members from those ethnic communities than usual. But within our major performing arts organisations, we are in real danger of creating an elitist arts community and an audience that does not represent contemporary Australia. As the 2011 Pulitzer Prize winning playwright, Bruce Norris, rightly said: ‘The people who go to the theatre are just like me; white, middle class, educated, small L liberals, progressive.’ This, plus ‘older and conservative’ viewers, is our audience too. While there is nothing wrong with this, it is unacceptable to presume that we should only play to that audience. Norris sees a society Courtesy of Opera Australia (2011). ©Branco Gaica

44 Policy • Vol. 28 No. 1 • Autumn 2012 Re-Imagining Opera in Australia

acting. For example, in our recent production trying to create an opera that Alban Berg may of La bohème, the Korean lead actor responded have written if he were still alive. emotionally (particularly at Mimi’s death) the way a Korean man would. People from Anglo/ If we are serious about playing European stock may not like that kind of acting style and emotional response, but to ethnically diverse and wider that is the Asian style ... and Asian audiences audiences, we need to consider the connect strongly to it because it reflects the performance styles we employ. way they are conditioned to respond. So if we are serious about playing to ethnically diverse and wider audiences, we need to consider the Brave programming performance styles we employ and the way we The premiere performance that gets rave communicate artistically with a changing and reviews and very few ticket sales never plays very different audience. Asian artists should again—primarily because it’s too expensive not be expected to perform like Europeans and its European aesthetic appeals only to a and communicate with their ethnic audience. small audience. Some people may call it ‘brave Of course an Asian artist will sometimes programming,’ but it’s not—it’s predictable and adopt a European performance style. I’m not lacks courage, innovation and creativity. Brave suggesting totalitarianism, only that while programming invites criticism, while making a we need to balance our performance styles to genuine connection to a real audience, who will continue to satisfy our existing clients, we also become passionate supporters of the art form. need to get over this cultural cringe of desperately For too long, we have alienated audiences and

Figure 2: La bohème

Courtesy of Opera Australia (2011). ©Branco Gaica

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driven them away from new operatic experiences repertoire. Most have had only a handful of because the work itself has had little relevance to performances and disappeared forever because a potential audience ... and in some cases not they didn’t connect with the audience. So why wanted to find an audience at al. Too many new don’t audiences of any significant number want have been exercises in indulgence for to see new operatic work? academic composers, most of whom have no We need to be informed by the culture of experience or understanding of the theatre or the today in our own backyard and create new work operatic form. that reflects the culture of our time and place. Of course we must commission new work, After all, that’s what Mozart and Verdi did. but we should be a lot more rigorous in our selection processes. Composers shouldn’t have Economics of art to follow prescribed formulas, but we also need Creating such new work is expensive and it has to create opportunities for a kaleidoscope of been virtually impossible to find an audience composers fluent in genuinely contemporary for this new repertoire. It may be that we music and theatre. need a national creative laboratory to enable contemporary operatic repertoire to be presented We need to be informed by the nationally by Opera Australia, in association culture of today in our own backyard with the regional opera companies in each state. Opera Conference could become a new initiative and create new work that reflects for the creation and development of new the culture of our time and place. Australian Opera to tell our stories in a contemporary operatic context. The funds that Since 1973, when the Australia Council Opera Conference uses to present standard was founded, more than 160 operas (or Music- repertoire could be used to create a new operatic Theatre pieces) have been commissioned and repertoire with a clear purpose to connect to presented. Not one of them has entered the a substantial audience.

Figure 3: The Magic Flute

Courtesy of Opera Australia (2012). ©Branco Gaica

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In the short term, it’s vital to establish a new The popular repertoire is of course regarded audience, communicate clearly and directly by this claque as inferior. Donizetti’s Poliuto or with them, and elicit from them emotional Messiaen’s St Francois DÁssisi would make for responses that intersect with those of traditional a wonderful presentation, but Opera Australia audiences—this will create a continuum between can’t afford to do them. The global economic the different cultural and artistic responses. The climate is extremely volatile, and we need to earn ethnicity of our vibrant communities must be $56 million next year through ticket sales alone included in our major arts organisations—just just to maintain our current level of activity. like the profound and immensely popular That’s $56 million excluding fundraising, migrant influence on our culinary repertoire. sponsorship, and government funding. The distinguished American music commentator and critic Alex Ross noted recently in the New Yorker magazine: Charles Darwin said: ‘It is not The question of where the money will the strongest that survive, or come from is one that opera companies the most intelligent, but the all over the world are anxiously most responsive to change.’ pondering, whether they derive the better part of their funds from the state, as in Italy and elsewhere in Europe, or draw on private donors in Funding the American style. What the art form Whether we like it or not, we are in the needs in either case is a persuasive entertainment business—if audiences are not justification for the expenditure. interested in buying tickets to our productions, and benefactors don’t sponsor the productions, This ‘justification’ must come from a demo- we are out of business. cratic support base that embraces the operatic I could of course demand more government form into the mainstream popular culture of funding for the arts—and garner support our time. for this speech from ‘the club’—but we need to remember that everyone who pays tax in Patrons and repertoire Australia is indirectly supporting us. Opera Australia does not exist only to serve Privileged access to significant amounts of a small but vocal group of people. Patrons of public funds for a small group of people was the Opera Australia are overwhelmingly generous catalyst for the French Revolution, and it’s one of financially and of spirit. Many of them, however, the reasons why the Middle East is undergoing are not wealthy and often save for months to such a dramatic political transformation. pay for tickets. It is our job to provide those The next 10 years could be the most ticket buyers with the best possible experience, provocative and volatile time in the history of arts otherwise we will lose our audience, and with funding in Australia. It is already happening in the them, employment opportunities for singers United States and Europe and will accelerate and musicians. over the next few years. The world has changed This situation also influences repertoire and we have to get used to it. All major arts choices. Singers often insist they want to sing organisations need to secure more income from Poliuto or some other little-known opera, and new sources but particularly from sponsors and composers complain about not enough new donors. The American system will become the work. But statistics show clearly that the norm, and we need to be nimble in adapting to audience for such repertoire is now limited to this new arts world. fewer than 5,000 people, and substantially less Charles Darwin said: ‘It is not the strongest in some cases. So popular repertoire must that survive, or the most intelligent, but the ‘subsidise’ the unpopular repertoire. most responsive to change.’

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Successful changes Opera has become less relevant in Australian The AFL in particular has embraced the rapidly culture in the last few years. The challenge now changing demographic of Australia. Its work is to engage with the notion of art as a popular in creating an audience from the grassroots of cultural phenomenon in the same way that each community is exemplary and connecting major art galleries have done: major state and new cultures to a strange new sport, particularly national galleries are now audience driven. in western Sydney, is a phenomenal achievement. Interestingly, contemporary art has found an Even the incredibly conservative and patrician extremely large audience. organisation like Cricket Australia has been We also need to seriously examine why forced to sell its product through 20/20 new work is substantially less popular than the matches, which has become the income driver standard repertoire. This is not the case with for the entire industry, now that the darling contemporary plays. Ray Lawler’s Summer of the of the establishment, test cricket, has lost its Seventeenth Doll, hardly a new play, is regularly haloed status. presented by theatre companies throughout For those of us who love cricket, these changes Australia. Even though critics may scorn and are not dissimilar to those in our arts world. deride his work, David Williamson’s plays Opera and classical music need to connect to are an important part every major Australian a wider public in the same way as AFL has theatre company’s repertoire ... audiences want to and examine what cricket has done with 20/20. see them. In fact, we have done it with Handa Opera on Sydney Harbour: La Traviata, which got Conclusion a tremendous response from sponsors and the Despite the enormous challenges we face, Opera public nationally and internationally. However, Australia will play to more people in 2012 we also need to look at 20/20 versions of opera than ever before in its history. By re-imagining performances to run in tandem with our test what an opera company is, and means, in the match opera. twenty-first century, we will democratise the Cultures change and audience tastes change operatic form for many thousands of people. because of those changes ... sometimes very And by engaging with a wide audience, we are quickly. If we as creative artists don’t respond placing the operatic art form firmly within the to the changes in society, the amount of opera popular consciousness. presented will decline dramatically along with While excellence in everything we do the standard of the work presented. remains our primary priority, our art will I find it peculiar that extremely successful also have integrity. Just because a painting or productions of Shakespeare’s plays can be cut, a performance is popular does not mean it is the text in famous speeches moved from the inferior; in fact, the greatest works of art are beginning to the end, and often include texts enormously popular. We will present the most from other writers—yet there is only admiration interesting repertoire, but we also we want as from the audience and media for a wonderful many people from the widest demographic to be theatrical experience! However, if a note of part of this extraordinary experience. We will do Mozart or Verdi is touched, there is a barrage our utmost to embrace a wide popular audience of vitriol from ‘the club.’ into our community, to play to as many people as William Powers, in his thought-provoking we can and to see in our audiences, on our stages book Hamlet’s Blackberry, suggests new and in our orchestra pits, the faces of new and technology has changed the way our brains contemporary Australians, the faces of Aboriginal work, and our attention spans are getting Australians, as well as our long-term traditional shorter. Digital technology is now a vital tool supporters. At Opera Australia we are committed in how we communicate the art we make to to ensuring that great art embraces the faces that contemporary society. represent Australia in the twenty-first century.

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