The announcement of Opera Australia’s 2015 season a few weeks back was greeted with more yawning than outrage. The repertoire is obviously conservative, the productions staid (Moffatt Oxenbould’s Madama Butterfly again?), and the inclusion of Anything Goes was viewed as a cynical attempt to boost box-office revenue at the expense of opera performers (and orchestral musicians) who would otherwise be on the stage of the Joan Sutherland Theatre (1).

I thought it might be fun to compare 2015’s repertoire with Opera America’s list of the most performed operas in the world. Let’s compare this list with, say, the Lyric Opera of Chicago (with a budget twice that of Opera Australia). And let’s look at what the Nuremberg State Opera is offering:

This small sample tells us that while Nuremberg and Chicago have their fair share of standard repertory items in their seasons, there are always some curiosities (like King Roger or Anna Bolena), some premieres and some lighter fare. OA’s season presents neither curiosities nor premieres.

Why is OA’s season so conservative?

The federal public subsidy for opera in Australia is highly lopsided. Here is a summary of funding for the four major Australian companies for financial year 2012-2013 (2):

The Federal Government has put all its operatic eggs in a single basket, granting Sydney the greatest access to professional opera in the nation.

Since the merger of the Victorian State Opera with the Australian Opera in 1996, the resultant Opera Australia has played a season in Melbourne each year; however, Melburnians generally only see half of the productions presented in Sydney.

It may seem that OA is merely responding to the wishes of its benefactors, who may demand to see the favourites. Yet the Chicago Lyric Opera has an annual revenue of roughly US$70 million, of which perhaps US$200,000 comes from government support – clearly, philanthropists are happy to fund new and/or interesting works. Instead, I believe the blame lies squarely with the company’s artistic director. Lyndon Terrancini seems to believe opera died in 1926 with Turandot – and the focus on glitzy events like Opera on the Harbour or South Pacific have turned the company into a tourist attraction rather than an opera company for the city. Here are a few quotes:

‘In all our research we find that if people come to a contemporary opera and they don’t like it, we can’t get them back. The biggest complaint they have is, and this is a quote, they “hated the music”.’

‘[New Music] has become so driven by academics and I mean this pompous academic attitude to making music, I mean it’s just mad’ (The Australian, 31 March, 2012).

The logic is simple: new music sounds awful and is difficult for people unfamiliar with opera to hear. But as readers of this blog would be well aware, consonance did not die with Puccini in 1926. Witness the extraordinary success of the meandering post-post-tonal works of Glass and Adams, the most-performed opera composers around today. Or the playful pastiche of Judith Weir, whose four operas received eight performances worldwide in the 2012/13 season. Indeed, one doesn’t have to return to the 19^th century to find 20^th and 21^st century composers who wrote approachable music (it’s odd to see Janaček and Britten unrepresented this year or last). Even so-called ‘difficult’ works can be popular with audiences – Zimmermann’s Die Soldaten sold 5000 tickets at $250 each in 2008 in New York (New York Times, 7 July, 2008).

Since its inception, Opera Australia has presented thirteen premieres of varying quality (3). Commissioning is risky: witness the wide gap that exists between The Eighth Wonder and Bliss. And larger companies are poorly resourced to support the development of new works. Since rehearsal time is inherently more expensive for them, it is difficult to allocate enough time to really iron out new works’ teething problems. The mighty Metropolitan Opera began a commissioning programme in 2006 which was beset with many difficulties, not least being its equally mammoth resources which had difficulty adapting to works with requirements outside the usual repertory. The first fruits of this programme didn’t reach audiences until 2013 with Two Boys, only the fifth premiere at the Met in the previous forty years.

I believe that it is silly to expect OA to perform new Australian works. The risk-averse tenure of Lyndon Terrancini has ensured that only well-established composers will be represented – if at all. This is not necessarily a loss to Australian audiences. Companies such as the Victorian Opera are commissioning and performing new work, and presenting innovative productions of firm favourites (their production this year of La traviata was one the most thought-provoking I have ever seen). What needs to change is the disproportionate public subsidy afforded to OA. If wealthy tourists wish to see a dull production of a repertory staple at the Opera House, perhaps they should pay a greater share of the production costs in their ticket. Public subsidies for the arts should go some way to advancing that form – not just in the production of new work, but in the presentation and access to old works. A fairer distribution of the meager funding may allow some smaller state companies to advance their innovative fare, and respond to a younger opera audience who doesn’t wish to be condescended to.

Note: Kate Miller-Heidke’s The Rabbits, an hour-long children’s opera, will be presented in Melbourne for seven performances. The work was commissioned by the Melbourne Festival and the Perth International Arts Festival, and is not part of the subscription season. While the results may be intriguing, its brevity in both presentation and duration may prevent any serious critical interest.

(1) The inclusion of lighter fare is not unknown to opera companies, allowing a great degree of cross-subsidisation. In 1971, the Nuremberg State Opera bookended Luigi Nono’s noisy and highly-Marxist Intolleranza 1970 with Die Csádásfürstin and Kiss Me, Kate – an operetta and a Broadway musical respectively. But at least these choices were appropriate for an opera house – requiring large orchestras, choruses, larger voices and little dancing in comparison to Anything Goes, which has a relatively small cast yet requires a preponderance of triple-threats.

(2) There are few other major companies, the most prominent being Early Music-focused Pinchgut in Sydney, the omnivorous Victorian Opera and the Melbourne Opera. Finally, there are a great number of smaller companies who either regularly perform chamber or smaller works, or do not present an opera each year (CitiOpera, Chamber Made Opera, Harbour City Opera, etc.).

(3) The Little Mermaid by Anne Boyd (1985); Metamorphosis by Brian Howard (1985); Voss by Richard Meale (1986); Whitsunday by Howard (1988); Mer de glace by Richard Meale (1992); The Golem by Larry Sitsky (1993); The Eighth Wonder by Alan John (1995); Summer of the Seventeenth Doll by Richard Mills (1999); Batavia by Richard Mills (2001); Love in the Age of Therapy by Paul Grabowsky (OzOpera 2002); Lindy by Moya Henderson (2003); Madeline Lee by John Haddock (2004); Bliss (2010) by Brett Dean

-Alexander O’Sullivan

Partial Durations is a Matthew Lorenzon/RealTime joint project.

Over at Usage and Continuation, composer Liam Flenady has been reflecting with his usual incisiveness upon his sojourn at Darmstadt, where a spate of works under the “New Conceptualist” moniker were garnering general disapproval. In Flenady’s words:

This movement seems to think music can be rescued by spectacle (going by the name, here, of ‘concept’ or even ‘Gehalt’). In general I found these pieces devoid of much musical interest or political worth. Where ‘politics’ has entered it has been negative and simplistic and centred on what could be called ‘middle class alienation’ (usually via technology).  seeking to repoliticise music through spectacle  sound decidedly worthless.

I can’t comment on the works myself, having not been there, but how much these works depart from previous outbursts of situationism, “stage-action,” or a good deal of the music theatre in Europe over the past forty years remains to be seen. I understand the movement received an implicit critique from Lachenmann during his lecture as a regression to musical “idiocy.” A discussion panel “New Conceptualism: A Dead End or a Way Out?” from 4 August can be streamed here. Flenady’s response sums up my own doubts:

Firstly, while I agree with Small that the essence of music is performance (and therefore participation), and that music needs to go beyond its alienated concert-hall-existence to deal with politics and to set bodies in motion, the essence of modern art music as alienated cannot be wished away. Moreover, Adorno was quite right, music must subtract itself as far as possible to gain some degree of truth. Attempts to go beyond art music’s abstraction in the modern context will more often than not lapse into semblance and spectacle – all the more insidious in that it feigns to be reappropriating its outside.

So I’m further convinced of the necessity of abstract chamber music.

Though opposition leader Bill Shorten has announced his intention to oppose the proposed cuts to health, education and the pension, the $87.1m in cuts to the Australia Council for the Arts and Screen Australia appear to be flying through unopposed. The effect of these cuts on contemporary music in Australia could be absolutely devastating. As Tony Grybowski, chief executive of the Australia Council has announced, the cuts are likely to affect individual artist and project grants rather than major ensembles. Unfortunately, the programming of contemporary music by Australia’s major ensembles remains extremely limited. Australia Council grants are a vital part of the diverse range of funding sources that keep musicians playing contemporary compositions around Australia every month (indeed, every week and almost every day) of the year. Seeing as the budget announcement roughly coincides with the anniversary of Partial Durations, I have found twelve reasons why the funding of contemporary Australian artists and projects should not be affected. All of the ensembles, composers, small arts organisations and festivals mentioned below have received Australia Council funding at some point over the past six years. They are, of course, a small selection amongst many, many more excellent musicians and organisations around Australia.

1. April: The Zephyr Quartet

The Zephyr Quartet have been presenting some of the finest contemporary music in Adelaide for years now. In fact, I can count their concerts amongst my first experiences of contemporary music as a student. Part of their skill at communicating with audiences is a passion for diverse styles and settings, which sees them performing in bars as well as recital halls. In 2013 Zephyr released A Rain from the Shadows, a CD of works that have inspired and inspired by poetry.

2. May: Kupka’s Piano

The new Queensland-based ensemble Kupka’s Piano have proven themselves indefatigable champions of the post-war European avant-garde in its most challenging forms. More importantly, they think of these forms as living traditions crossing national boundaries. Every concert features works by contemporary European and Australian composers, often in collaboration with visiting ensembles. Kupka’s Piano’s concert series at the Judith Wright Centre in Brisbane kicked off with “Giants Behind Us,” a survey of contemporary German composition.

3. June: The Phonetic Ensemble

Melbourne’s Phonetic Ensemble is pushing the boundaries (just when you thought there were no more to be pushed!) of site-specific, semi-improvised music. This year sees them teaming up with some of Australia’s most respected contemporary musicians in a series of mentorships that will stretch these incredible musicians even further. In their first ever performances, The Phonetic Ensemble transformed Bus Projects into a dynamic musical performance.

4. July: Invenio

Composer and performer Gian Slater leads the Invenio Singers, an a cappella group bringing minimalist timbral improvisation and extended tonality to the masses. What’s more, they’re apt to tour and so you can be sure to hear them in a city near you. They’re great fun to see perform, especially when teaming up with an ace lighting or costume designer.

5. August: The Totally Huge New Music Festival/Decibel Ensemble

The East Coast has never seen anything like what happened in Perth last year with the combined International Computer Music Conference and Totally Huge New Music Festival. Every day and night over almost two weeks was saturated with orchestral, small ensemble and electroacoustic performances,

as well as some of the more lively discussion about contemporary music that one is lively to hear. The festival featured numerous performances by Perth’s own Decibel Ensemble, who commissioned new works by visiting composers David Toop and Alvin Curran.

6. September: The Bendigo International Festival of Exploratory Music

I must admit I was overseas when BIFEM was on last year, and more’s the pity. Composer David Chisholm has developed an utterly unique festival with an attention to programming not seen since the Domaine musical.

7. October: Speak Percussion

Speak Percussion have become Australia’s foremost percussion ensemble over the decade or so of their existence. As well as reviving large-scale works by the likes of Grisey and Xenakis, they are avid commissioners of new works by Australia’s most unique composers. To top it all off, the ensemble has a flair for presentation that makes each performance a unique and thrilling experience. Collaborating with SIAL studios for some truly magnificent sound projection, their performance of Le Noir de l’étoile at Deakin Edge was a highlight of contemporary percussion last year.

8. November: Annie Hui-Hsin Hsieh

Annie Hui-Hsin Hsieh is one of Australia’s finest composers, a fact made all too evident by the fact that she is rarely here any more. There is a discipline to her writing that refuses to slip into confusion, tempered by a lively musical imagination. In Icy Disintegration, already five years old, she has also produced a poignant work about the impending disasters associated with climate change.

9. December: Chronology Arts

Enough can’t be said for the small contemporary music organisations like Tura New Music in Perth and Chronology Arts and the New Music Network in Sydney. These organisations provide an external impetus to the goings-on of composers and musicians, bringing new ideas and audiences into contact with new music. In December, Keith Gallasch reported on a Chronology Arts event involving new compositions inspired by the 18th century Sanskrit text Bodhasâra.

10. January: Ensemble Offspring

Ensemble Offspring, who have recently achieved “Key Organisation” status at the Australia Council, are doing more than anyone to break down barriers between classical and popular music audiences. Their concerts are fresh, lively and relaxed, with the ensemble taking frequent time out to explain what’s going on in the music to the audience. They also maintain significant relationships with composers and performers overseas, keeping their schedule stocked with commissions and tours.

11. February: James Rushford

James Rushford’s name and photograph have popped several times while writing the above blurbs. Rushford has made a name for himself both as an improvising musician, frequently performing alongside Joe Talia and touring internationally, and as a composer working along spectralist and experimental lines. In keeping with his explorations within relatively limited timbral worlds, his recent solo work for Speak Percussion Artistic Director Eugene Ughetti is an enigmatic study in metal percussion engaging every limb of the performer in an immense battery of chimes and bells.

12. March: Luke Paulding

Emerging composer Luke Paulding’s complexist aesthetic is coupled with a poetic sensitivity to produce dynamic compositions of unequalled charm in the Australian scene. Some highlights for me have been Her Sparkling Flesh in Saecular Ecstasy, and a fragment of an opera on Icarus and Daedalus commissioned by Chamber Made Opera. His recent works have become more spacious and consciously polyphonic. He has a well-stocked SoundCloud here where you can hear much of his music, including his latest efforts at the Royaumont Foundation.

Partial Durations is a RealTime/Matthew Lorenzon joint project.

In this month’s RealTime magazine I speak with Liza Lim about a very early work and a very recent work with some startling parallels.

It is hard to think of a contemporary Australian composer who has made as unique and sustained a contribution to Australian music as Jon Rose. As anyone who has seen him play live will know, he is also a great speaker. Who better to kick off RealTime’s new discussion blog RealTime Talk with a post about those issues of the day, the internet, technology and privacy?

Partial Durations is a Realtime/Matthew Lorenzon joint project.

RealTime Tv produced this fascinating video about the background of Robin Fox’s new full-colour RGB Laser show at MOFO.

Original RealTime site here.

Partial Durations is a RealTime/Matthew Lorenzon joint project.

In this month’s edition of RealTime I catch up with the composer James Hullick and ask what’s next for his many creative ensembles.

Partial Durations is a Matthew Lorenzon/RealTime joint project.