Joan Sutherland on demand as Opera Australia moves online
Opera Australia has launched an online channel of historic performances and new material featuring company artists.
Opera Australia may be late to the party, but the nation’s biggest performing arts company has made the pivot to digital streaming, launching an online channel of historic performances and new material featuring company artists.
The COVID-19 lockdown has forced OA to cancel dozens of performances in Melbourne and Sydney including on Sydney Harbour, where it presents outdoor productions on a floating stage.
Past performances of the Handa Opera on Sydney Harbour series, starting with La Traviata from 2012 with Emma Matthews, will feature on OA | TV: Opera Australia on Demand when the free service launches on Monday.
The online opera channel follows moves by other performing arts companies here and overseas — including the Australian Ballet and the Metropolitan Opera in New York — to open their archives when theatres are closed.
Among the treasures OA will screen are performances by the company’s biggest star, Joan Sutherland, who regularly performed at the Sydney Opera House in the 1970s and 80s.
The season of Sutherland archives includes The Merry Widow, conducted by her husband Richard Bonynge, as well as productions of Lucrezia Borgia, La Fille du Regiment, and a gala concert with Luciano Pavarotti.
“Australians have great affection for Joan Sutherland,” said OA artistic director Lyndon Terracini. “People will be able to see all of these roles again, when we’re not in the theatre.”
On the opera channel, Terracini will host discussions and special performances by OA artists, including tenor Diego Torre, soprano Natalie Aroyan and the Opera Australia Orchestra’s concertmaster, violinist Jun Yi Ma.
Jun is the first guest in Terracini’s In Conversation series: the Shanghai-born violinist was mentored in the US by the great concert violinist Jascha Heifetz and was invited by Ronald Reagan to perform at the White House.
Opera Australia was one of the first major arts companies to stand down its staff, including the OA Orchestra, due to the lockdown. Federal Arts Minister Paul Fletcher said the company would receive $4.7 million in JobKeeper subsidies for 244 staff.
Terracini said the company had grown in size and built a strong tourist market for its performances, but audiences had disappeared overnight due to coronavirus.
“It’s been an extremely difficult and challenging time,” he said. “We will have to rebuild, we will have to find very different ways of doing things. The entire industry has changed.”
To watch OA | TV go to tv.opera.org.au
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