From performances in iconic theatres, office-buildings, paddocks, car museums, and underground cellars, I have taken new works, renowned old works and hidden treasures, and imprinted them with our time and place.
We are living through a time of rapid change. It is an important time to play with and push the familiar to create that operatic storytelling circle that can hold both stalwarts and newcomers. We can’t just keep repeating the past, and for many in Australia, that is what they think when they think of opera. We must grab that connection between where we’ve been and where we’re going, and be champions for a hopeful future: parameters are changing, for the better.
We’re not dealing with people who haven’t seen film or TV or YouTube or music video – everyone who comes into an opera theatre – or performance space – has seen historical drama, contemporary fantasy, verbatim drama – you name it, someone’s seen it, and presenting anything without taking that into account is, well, kind of pointless, because any time we have with an audience member is a bright spark that can be diminished in a flash by boredom or disconnection.
ACOCO is a company with a reputation for always stepping out first, and often beyond what anyone else does – and that comes down to a broad, big artistic vision, with a singer’s soul. It’s not enough to just keep presenting an annual season that conforms to a conventional pattern. That’s been done – and is already done – what excites me is the possibility of making our flagship festival output THE flagship Festival. A brand of opera-music-theatre that stands out from the rest, through strength and variety of artistic concepts, and the team that has a unique capacity to pull together.
The foundation of any artistic endeavour is a unified, agreed vision for the end result – and artists and musicians, despite their different opinions and backgrounds, do respond well – or at least professionally - to a big creative vision that asks for their best, their trust and requisite cooperation.
My global view of sector trends and developments, broad experience of types and standards of productions - from The Met and Covent Garden to Bayreuth, Salzburg, Glyndebourne - all the way to back rooms of pubs in the UK and warehouse shells in the USA – has given me exposure to creative forces, combinations and story diversity that haven’t hit Australia – yet. Digital – film – VR – immersive engagement, which has broader - and positive - implications for things like breaking down prejudices, access, sustainability and reach.
In these times when people have the capacity to pick and choose - and shut out, if they have pre-conceived ideas - ‘Opera for Everyone’ (or anyone, which might be more inclusive), is less about dragging everyone to ‘the opera’, as it is perceived by much of the GP, but enhancing that by taking elements of opera out into the community: making sure there is a presence bigger and bolder that people can’t ignore – and also, aiming to have ‘vibe’ different to other companies. I have many ideas of how to combine the rather conventional skills of most of the artists around us with creative collaborators who can come together on a mass audience artistic vision - not necessarily blockbusters, which assume wealth of the ticket-buying disposable income kind - but available, visible - there for the taking; unexpected, surprising, unobtrusive until someone engages.
We’ve been tugging on the coat tails of UK and Europe especially, training our most talented, and letting them go to the other side of the world so that they can do normal human things, like have a paid job and a career trajectory doing what they’re [exceptionally] good at…
The imprint of time should be felt on opera, just as it is on every other art form. We have to confront the racist and sexist ideology within these works. The spirit of right now has to inflect everything around how we do it.
That is why ACOCO is developing as the most progressive and audacious company in the country. We go after representation on stage, in the creative staff, in the orchestra – we embrace diversity - and also look at accessibility in terms of how inherited repertoire is handled and what new pieces are being presented.
We have to do what film does – resonate with people in a sense that it connects with them and their lives in someway. And people don’t expect to like every film they see, or book that they read - they keep going until they find something they love. We have to do that in opera - change the conversation, make the sector less prohibitive - cost-wise, language-wise, culture-wise. It might only be through a snippet of a relationship or a shared emotion or an acknowledgment of trauma – but unless we connect with people – many people – we are going to keep having the same old ‘why do opera, it’s expensive, no one cares’ conversation.
I want to put that to rest by finding the funding (capacity) to do a variety of artistic projects that make those attitudes obsolete.