Opera Companies Required To Hire More Home Talent
In a long-awaited response to the National Opera Review, chaired by Helen Nugent and released nearly a year ago in October 2016, the federal government has addressed the declining number of Australian opera singers heard on Australian stages by requiring that the nation’s major opera companies employ more Australian singers in an “appropriate balance” or face fines of up to $200,000.00.
Australia has a proud history of producing world-class singers from the days of Dame Nellie Melba, through the Dame Joan Sutherland era to the present, with singers like Stuart Skelton, Jessica Pratt, Siobhan Stagg, Deborah Humble, Sam Sakker and Yvonne Kenny, amongst numerous others, making their names both here and overseas, despite a relatively small population. Many have not returned and gifted others have abandoned their singing careers despite years of training, for other jobs.
The federal government is said to define “appropriate balance” as the “number of Australian singers in leading mainstage opera roles fall(ing) below 80 percent.”
Read more in the Daily Review and in The Australian.
