Long live opera.
Hello, I am Linda Thompson - formerly, principal soprano with Opera Australia, where I performed more than 20 principal roles at the Sydney Opera House, former Head of Classical Voice at Monash University. Currently, Artistic Director and founder of Australian Contemporary Opera Company [ACOCO] - and the Yarra Valley [Australia’s only] Opera Festival. To get us all into an opera-state-of-mind, I’d like to introduce you to three extraordinarily talented, dedicated young artists. On piano is Jane Matheson - Jane incidentally was our very first repetiteur / opera pianist in training in 2009 - and is now a regular pianist with Opera Australia. Georgia Wilkinson and Naomi Flatman are in their second year with ACOCO - Young Artists who will both make major role debuts in our Festival in October. [Sous le dôme épais - LAKMÉ - Delibes]
Thank you very much Robyn, for inviting me here to speak tonight, and to you all for coming along so that we can talk about my favourite topic - opera - and its necessary reshaping and redesign for the 21st century.
I’ve subtitled tonight’s introductory speech ‘Opera is Dead, Long Live Opera’. Of all the performing arts, opera fights a never-ending battle for survival - audiences are becoming harder to win over, as pre- and misconceptions are carried from one generation to the next - but it doesn’t - and cannot - die. We must not drop the baton. It must change however; in Australia particularly, not least to win over people who increasingly have more competition for their free time - and less free time - than ever before. Opera is relatively new in Australia - although the earliest records of Australian colonial theatres show touring overseas opera companies were here as early as 1842 - here in Melbourne, it was almost 100 years later that Miss Gertrude Johnson OBE, a protégé of Melba, came back from London and in 1934 started her own company - The Australian National Theatre Company - which included the first Australian schools for opera, drama and ballet. Twenty years later, in 1954, her company gave a Royal Command performance for Queen Elizabeth II, and the Australian Elizabethan Theatre Trust was subsequently formed - however, in a spectacular display of Sydney-Melbourne rivalry - out of the Elizabethan Theatre Trust ‘The Australian Opera Company’ was born, initially as a touring company - with Sydney as a home base. I give that historical context primarily to explain give background into our own pioneering spirit, and of this company I founded ten years ago - now known as ACOCO - named to honour a trailblazing and under-celebrated Australian woman. To link a similar determination and sense of responsibility in establishing - the only Australian Opera Festival - the Yarra Valley Opera Festival (after ten years of Melbourne-centric performances) - as a third pillar of professional opera in Australia - not in competition but alongside our State and National companies - with a view firmly on the future of opera - the art, audiences, performers - for the 21st century.
When I was in my final year at University, I met and formed a little opera company with Barrie Kosky. For those of you who are not familiar with Barrie - he is a Melbourne-born, Berlin-based opera director. Not just any opera director - he has twice been awarded International Opera Director of the Year. Which, for those of you unaware, is like winning an Olympic Gold medal - twice. After being at the helm of the Komische Opera - so-called ‘comedy opera’ - but essentially one of the three major opera houses in Berlin - Barrie redefined the ‘komische opera’ for Berliners, or more appropriately, he defined it - making it a welcoming place full of productions that are awe-inspiring, sometimes hilarious, sometimes shocking, sometimes both. The big difference between opera in Australia and opera in Berlin obviously, is the level of funding - and the government subsidised ticket price, which for most Germans means going to the opera is like going to a movie. Barrie has an artistic budget in Berlin that Australian - and most UK - opera companies can only dream of. For all our joint experience - from the Union Theatre at Melbourne University and TheatreWorks in St Kilda to Royal Opera House Covent Garden, Glyndebourne, Bayreuth, The Met - we remain firmly connected by a driving force - one we have devoted our working lives to since we were both in our early 20s - and that is, that the story or the message is supreme, and the quality elements are not there to be revered - they are to be used to reach people, to move people - to be transformed and to transform. Barrie says: “in an opera evening, your senses must be intoxicated. Otherwise, what’s the point?” It is not by chance that Barrie’s Komische Opera House is noted equally for how interesting the productions AND its audience are…
AUDIENCES TODAY AND FUTURE
The National Review of Opera investigated audience disengagement from opera over 2009 - 2013 - without properly acknowledging the possible effect of the GFC - but most interesting, they found in their surveys that many people, young people especially, viewed it as not an ‘art of our time’. There is a strong call for Australian content on our stages, and I agree that is absolutely necessary, but I also suggest that old works looked at with Australian eyes can have an impact as profound in shifting perceptions and creating points of connection. There is a glaring statistic that I think fuels the discontent stirred up in the industry from time to time. That is that the artistic voices / leaders in our comfortably government funded opera companies are 90% white men over 60. That is not meant as a political jibe or a criticism - will. need to be stated as a fact until society is aware that the issue exists, and can be driven to shift something. It impacts not only the creative voices, but as the vast majority of funding is tied up there, has a far-reaching effect into the future - and the survival of opera. Until there is more diverse creative leadership - by that I mean artistic leaders - those that have the power to say whose, which, how and by whom the stories will be told - and that is not performers, or management - opera will be stuck in the 20th century. It may be controversial to say, but our opera artistic leadership is stagnant - therefore most of our opera is similarly stuck and lacking. We need an influx of innovative thinkers, of varied social and cultural backgrounds involved in the telling of these wonderful stories - old and new - or opera will struggle to be important to an Australian population in the 21st century. Our driving force is to have an audience member so overcome with the thoughts and feelings that they either didn’t know what to think, even if some will hate it...most of time when people say they hate something, it is because of how it made them feel - so we let them feel - encourage visceral , gut reactions - the primary goal is to have them moved, and the second is to have them think - but you can’t control the second as a performer - the creative team does that. And if those creative teams - particularly stage directors - continue to be 85-90% men, is it any wonder the thinking part of it has not been ignited? I’ve nothing against great male directors and male conductors. But opera doesn’t have time to continue with complacency and same-old. You have one chance usually, to convince someone to give you their trust and keep coming back.
As I have been growing audiences for Gertrude Opera’s work - we have produced more Australian premieres than any other company in Australia in the past 8 years - it becomes clear that there is not only a young generation - youth - that are not connected with opera and what it means for the human spirit - there are people in their 40s, 50s, 60s plus who have never been, who have never viewed opera as ‘for the likes of them’, and who consequently are not bringing their children and their grandchildren. If anyone wants to listen or watch, it is on a screen somewhere - but we - those who know and care - we know that it is only live performance that can reach in and grab hold of someone. I truly believe this type of connection is going to be the most sought after with the rise of AI, automation and technology. Humans instinctively - eventually - seek out what they are missing. Some of my favourite audience feedback quotes from last year: “We loved it. Our first visit to the opera, and we cannot wait for next year” Heinz and Helga (in our 80s.) “It was amazing! This event will stay with me. (I am 75) “I found a new love this week. I have always thought that opera wasn’t my thing, however this has blown my mind…simply stunning.” “for me it has made as bit a cultural impact as the introduction of Tarrawarra Museum of Art to the Valley” “my nine year old is off to his guitar lessons today with an invigorated spring in his step” “my 14 year old daughter’s first opera experience and ‘she wasn’t bored at all - she quite liked it” which from a fairly critical teenager is high praise”
FESTIVAL OPERA
Through my determination to bring festival opera to Australian audiences, and with my experience growing Gertrude Opera’s audience, I know that there is an audience for opera in Australia - it just isn’t the audience it has now. I know opera is a living, breathing art form that is current, vibrant, relevant and fresh. Festivals are Australia’s fastest growing format for consuming live music, and it is the right way to reach our new audience. Festival opera is allowed to be bold, to be progressive, and to be theatrical - performed without conductor sometimes, in the round at others - risky, bold, irreverent, cheeky - as a rule, not as a novelty.
The bonus of being lifted out of one’s normal environment to enjoy world-class opera in a non-traditional space - such as a ‘tent-theatre in a paddock nestled in the Yarra Valley - adds a whole new level of social engagement. I have, from the days I ran a company with Barrie Kosky, and to now, when I’ve seen A-House, B-House, student opera, pub opera, festival opera and experimental opera - had an artistic impulse to play with the material to incorporate elements of old and new.
Gertrude Opera, through its company of established and young artists, musicians and creative teams, is re-vitalising the art form. Presenting new works, presenting new ways of seeing old works - and, shock, horror, we’re taking master works and messing with not only the story-telling, but with the soundscapes. Generations of audiences who’ve grown up with film and video game scores, recorded music, sound effects and amplified instruments don’t hold prejudices around what opera ‘should’ sound like... We’re singing the old melodies that are like honey for the voice and tonic for the ear - keeping the finely crafted combination of words and emotion - unamplified - AND adding a 21st century soundscape, with electric guitar, amplified strings, expanded percussion and electric keyboard.
Singing Macbeth is one of Australia’s most revered Verdi baritones - Michael Lewis OAM. He has sung on world stages, with the best orchestras, and yet, he is excited by our version of the orchestration which brings ‘rock’ musicians and opera orchestral players together. That a single human voice can ‘out-sing’ an amplified orchestra of 12-16 is simply extraordinary. That the two strands of emotional and dramatic expression can fuse to form a perfect, thrilling combination for an opera written in 1847, is tremendously exciting. So exciting, that James Black (of RocKwiz, Mondo Rock) and Peter Farnan (Boom Crash Opera) have jumped on board to contribute to the score. The production is in collaboration with a New York based company, Monk Parrots, and we are to perform a concert version at La MaMa in New York in December, with a full season planned in January 2021.
We’re taking a 21st century look at Monteverdi’s 1643 Poppea - his last opera - unlike his others, that were written for court performance, Poppea was written for a commercial theatre - possibly explains all the sex and murder - and it premiered during the carnival season. Using Melbourne-based composer/conductor and Artistic Director of Forest Collective Evan Lawson, to craft (or ‘tamper’) with that Baroque soundscape - to bring a romantic, filmic soundscape to a brutal, bloody and fascinating story - using the unusual combination of double string quartet with two (real) harpsichords - stage directed by Emmy-Award winning Australian theatre director Gale Edwards, it will be unlike anything anyone in Melbourne has seen before. In my role of introducing Festival Opera to Australia, I don’t think it is my job to convince or try to impress those who are already engaged in opera to come along - I presume they have a predisposed curiosity - my artistic spirit is geared towards capturing the many, many people who have perhaps thought opera is not for them, worried that they will feel uncomfortable, that it is ‘old-fashioned’ and weird - and that it is only for ‘certain people’. Or, they’ve been once, or twice or ten times, and haven’t gone back because they didn’t enjoy it - they were bored - or worse, alienated. What sets us apart? We sing primarily in English. We focus on text, on relationships and drama We shorten, change, alter material in the interests of audience engagement. I say this to you knowing that there is nothing revolutionary in what we’re doing in an international context, but in Australia, audiences have not had the experience of Festival opera, and nor have the majority heard of Glyndebourne - this shining beacon of festival opera that has evolved from a romantic notion of a very wealthy Englishman and his soprano wife to lead the way in dynamic, thrilling and bold productions. I am to announce tonight a secret, that is embargoed for a few weeks until the official announcement. Our international Artistic Patron is Danielle de Niese - she is an Australian soprano - who won young talent time as a 9 year old - and went off to live in America. She is married to Gus Christie, the grandson of Sir John Christie, who founded Glyndebourne Festival Opera in 1934. (same year Gertrude Johnson started the National Theatre in Melbourne. (He too was told his ideas were folly…) That’s not the secret. The secret is: after discussion with the new Artistic Director of Glyndebourne, Stephen Langridge, Gertrude Opera is to hold a regional heat of the Glyndebourne Opera Cup. Other heats are being held in Berlin, Paris, London, Vienna, Milan, New York & Capetown. Held every 2 years, and held for the first time in 2018, and now with a heat as a satellite event of the Yarra Valley [Australian International] Opera Festival, we will award an Australian, NZ, Chinese or Hong Kong born singer and send them to Glyndebourne to progress straight into the semi-final. It is an extraordinarily exciting connection to one of the most prestigious festival companies in the world. With our 3 operas, the Glyndebourne Opera Cup heat, and two satellite events, we are beyond excited about our 2nd Festival, and beginning to see what the 21st century holds.
CALL TO ACTION
And that leads to me to why I am here. We have vision and opportunity, but what we don’t have is sufficient funding. It is clear that the big AMPAG / government pie is not going to be divided up and change our fortunes anytime soon - and so we are appealing to people who believe in what we are doing, for opera now - and for what we are setting up for the rest of the 21st century - to help us financially. The performers and I - we’ve all been the beneficiaries of philanthropy to get us to this point - and from those opportunities, this enterprise has grown - a bigger, broader vision, which needs support. I recognise that it is difficult, in an environment where return on investment for shareholders drives companies, and social, climate and health issues trump the arts - pardon the pun. We’re in the bringing strangers together, of driving empathy, thought and wonder - helping to broaden horizons and spark possibilities. That is priceless. Food, shelter, health equal living - any living creature needs the same. But humans also need sparks of the beyond - Art - Opera - does that. Opera looks past what is squarely in front of us - past what we think we need and to what we didn’t realise we needed - it invites sharing - vibrations, opinions, questions, thoughts, problems, ideas, solutions, horizons. ACOCO has ticked over its tenth year of operation, and I have eyed this milestone with a clear vision of what I wanted to have achieved. What we look back and see is a little company that roars. We have a strong audience focus, and a theatre DNA. Our Culture Projects have used opera to hold a mirror to some of the most confronting social issues of our time - domestic abuse, immigration, cult - and our reshaped old works have engaged an loyal and interested audience - many of whom still do not step into the State theatre. I daresay the future of opera - or arts festivals - is not in musicals and light shows and digital backdrops and excess. The opera devil is in the detail. Harnessing all we know about ‘real’ human connection, about understanding the people who live with, alongside and far from us: opera-telling the stories of us and of others in our own unique and connected way to pass a 400+ year old baton and carry it into the 21st century. I know for sure that the only thing that’s good for opera is GOOD opera. The opera festivals with longevity value quality-control that is managed through artistic choice and brand alignment - you can’t just throw open a ‘festival’ to anyone who wants to perform, or you lose your claim on ‘excellence’ and the term ‘festival opera’ becomes generic, or a ‘community’ festival. We want to employ the best. To do that, we significant financial support - Angels, Benefactors, Patrons - to help us deliver our world-class Festival - and the Glyndebourne Opera Cup Heat - this year, and be able to plan for the future. One of the problems with being an independent company is a lack of capacity for forward-planning - we have survived ten years by being prudent, and only committing when we knew we could deliver and ‘land the plane’ as they say. I don’t want to change that caution, but we do need the capacity to be able to plan 2 - 3 - 5 - 10 years ahead. The government will help with marketing/tourism related funding, but not artistic costs (the people who perform and create) - Government money is tied up in the AMPAG / Aust Council model, and unlikely to change fast enough for us. We want to craft new work - new Australian work - we want opera artists to have viable careers in Australia and to act as a bridge to overseas opportunities - we want to be the future employer of our young artists we train, and most importantly, to leave a legacy of a vibrant Opera Festival style and culture for generations to come. We are all dedicated professionals, and passionate about what we do: we value our partners, donors and supporters more than you can imagine - if you have the capacity and the inclination - we’d love to welcome you into our company to be a part of shaping opera in Australia for the 21st century. Thanks again Robyn for inviting us here. Our singers will finish with a couple of pieces of music - which they will introduce, and then open the discussion = Q & A. Re-invent the Ensemble Company How much: $3M over 3 years (Victorian Opera get $4.4M per year/$12M+ over 3. They have no full-time singers) There are enough fantastic professional singers in Australia (or Australians who want to be working and living in Australia) to re-invent the idea of an ensemble - I want, ultimately to get an ensemble, five well-known singers, five unknown singers, five young singers, put them on salary for two or three years, and present works that you wouldn't normally see - or in extraordinarily bold ways. Put 15 singers on salary for three years. Put them into our festival operas, and then onto a bus. Get them doing charity balls and TV appearances and all the singing they possibly can - because they’re on salary. Have them sing for people who’ve never had the chance to see real opera-theatre - ‘ new’ or new-old opera- we don’t give them what they’ve seen on TV. Get new audiences hooked - on stories, emotional exchanges, relationships, dilemmas - see their own emotions be reflected through the drama, and extravagant imagination - places their minds would not necessarily have taken them - with the music and voices as the last element (the singers’ secret weapon).
