State of play: why Sydney is falling behind other capital cities

Is the Emerald City losing its lustre? Rosemary Neill reports how, in cultural terms, other state capitals are outshining Sydney

EDMUND Capon is in a startlingly confessional mood. It's late morning on a changeable spring day and the director of the Art Gallery of NSW is running behind schedule. Capon's harried personal assistant is trying to shepherd him from our interview to his next meeting like a kelpie nipping the heels of a recalcitrant sheep. To little avail: her boss has something important to say and refuses to be tyrannised by the appointments diary.

The affable Englishman has presided over the AGNSW for 31 years, making him the country's longest serving gallery head. But lately this old master, known for his gale-force charm and willingness to play the showman, has been looking enviously at his interstate counterparts; specifically, at how they are mounting imported blockbusters that his gallery - NSW's flagship visual arts institution - cannot afford.

Over his regular "pink drink" (carbonated grapefruit juice) in the AGNSW's bustling cafe, Capon confides: "We're very conscious of the achievement of the National Gallery of Victoria, the Queensland Art Gallery and the National Gallery in Canberra, [which], by consolidating the state and city resources ... have managed to stage exhibitions that we have not managed to do." He says of the just-opened blockbuster Masterpieces from Paris at Canberra's National Gallery of Australia: "That's an exhibition that needed a lot of money. To be honest, we couldn't do it. We just couldn't do it."

Masterpieces from Paris features works by van Gogh, Gauguin and Cezanne from the Musee d'Orsay. It's a coup for the NGA, as it marks the first time these paintings have been exhibited together outside France. Such shows are expensive and usually require investment from governments to help galleries meet exhibition fees and freight, insurance and marketing costs. Capon says the NGA secured the Musee d'Orsay exhibition with financial help from the federal and ACT governments, but reveals: "It's very hard for us to be able to galvanise those disparate resources [in NSW]. The thing is, probably a good 50 per cent of the audience for that show will travel down from Sydney, probably more. I think there's some justification to say, 'Well, look, why isn't Sydney doing this?'"

That an experienced gallery director feels driven to speak out, albeit implicitly, against the state government that partly funds his institution is symptomatic of a wider cultural malaise afflicting NSW and, in particular, its physically blessed capital. Other arts powerbrokers believe that while Sydney lays claim to the nation's most cherished building (the Opera House), its most cherished actress (Cate Blanchett, who co-pilots the Sydney Theatre Company,) and successful summer arts and writers festivals, a post-Olympics culture of complacency has set in with the full, enervating force of a January heatwave. Combined with long-term political indifference, critics say this complacency is retarding cultural life in the most populous state.

One senior insider who does not want to be named, says: "Since [former premier] Bob Carr's time, there has been a very laissez-faire attitude to the arts in NSW." This insider claims other state governments work harder than NSW politicians do to cultivate talented artists or to make signature cultural events happen. Another senior arts figure concurs: "For successive governments in NSW, culture has been a low priority."

So is the Emerald City losing its lustre? Certainly, in terms of public architecture, new arts venues and blockbuster exhibitions and musicals, Sydney is fast being eclipsed by Canberra, Brisbane and Melbourne.

During the past three years, Melbourne has cemented its position as the home of big-budget musicals or, as spruikers like to put it, "the Broadway of the southern hemisphere". In that time the city has snaffled premiere seasons of the musicals Jersey Boys and Wicked and revival seasons of Guys and Dolls, Miss Saigon and Phantom of the Opera.

Fame and Mary Poppins are to open in Melbourne next year; the latter was snatched from NSW when Sydney's long-debated venues shortage put off Mary Poppins' powerful British producer Cameron Mackintosh. Mackintosh, the man behind Cats, Les Miserables and Phantom of the Opera, was reportedly enticed south by an undisclosed sweetener from Major Events Victoria, the government agency that plays a crucial role in the state's cultural life by investing in and aggressively lobbying for events that will stimulate tourism.

George Souris, NSW opposition spokesman for tourism, racing and major events, is nothing if not blunt. He says: "In terms of theatre, we are getting our butt totally kicked. We haven't had a premiere musical for a long time." (In fact, the stage version of High School Musical opened at Sydney's Capitol Theatre last year but folded within weeks.) Souris says normally it's the first-run musicals that attract interstate and foreign tourists and generate millions of dollars in flow-on tourism revenue. He says Victoria's cultural infrastructure and bidding know-how is so sophisticated that "whenever Melbourne [wants] something, they can just go and get it ... they're 10 years ahead".

John Frost, Australia's most successful commercial theatre producer, has not premiered a musical in Sydney for several years because, as he puts it, "It's still too hard to take a risk here in premiering something."

Frost is virtually a one-man theatre industry. In his compact Sydney office just paces away from the vast, ornate Capitol, he rattles off his present and forthcoming productions, keeping a seemingly endless team of assistants and contacts on their toes by demanding opening-night guest lists, dates, anecdotes, on the spot. Frost launched the $12.5 million musical Wicked - a witty extravaganza about the good and bad witches from The Wizard of Oz - in Melbourne last year. He spent a further $5m transferring it to Sydney, where it is playing to healthy houses at the Capitol.

His sexy, sinewy production of Chicago has just finished its Melbourne season and heads to Perth in February, while the talent-school fable Fame is to open in the Victorian capital next April. In the same month, Frost will open the play Calendar Girls - based on the film about middle-aged housewives who discover their inner centrefolds - in Brisbane. Frost is a co-producer of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert, which is enjoying a sustained run in London's West End, and he also had a hand in the recent Broadway production of Exit the King, starring Geoffrey Rush and Susan Sarandon. "No Sydney premieres," he mutters, as he ticks off his shows across the globe.

Caressing his BlackBerry, he says the obstacles to staging a first-run production in Sydney are venue availability, lack of a defined theatre district, relatively sparse media coverage, and state government indifference. "I can have a conversation in Melbourne with [Victorian Premier] John Brumby about any show that I want to bring into Victoria," he says nonchalantly. "I cannot necessarily have that ... with any premier in NSW."

For the past 15 months, the just-deposed NSW premier, Nathan Rees, doubled as arts minister. He was such a low-key performer in this role Frost didn't realise he held the portfolio. The producer admits: "I didn't even know he was arts minister, so there you go." Robyn Nevin, former artistic director of Sydney Theatre Company, knew about Rees's alternative job but says she didn't have "any sense of his presence".

Frost says that unlike Rees, former premiers Jeff Kennett, Don Dunstan and Steve Bracks played lead roles in promoting the arts in their states. He recalls Kennett - who helped resuscitate an ailing Victorian economy in the 1990s by marketing his state as a cultural destination - promoting Sunset Boulevard by cooking sausages on a Melbourne footpath. Frost says the issue is "not about writing a cheque. It's about getting behind it and being there and waving the flag ... [Take] the closing night of Wicked in Melbourne. The Victorian Premier was there; the new Melbourne Lord Mayor [Robert Doyle] was there ... It was a Sunday night, but they were there. I can't even get [NSW ministers] to an opening night here."

It's not just the free opening-night tickets and drinks: Victorian politicians support big-budget musicals because they know they can be a boon. Last week the Victorian government released figures showing that Wicked's 13-month Melbourne season pumped $126m into the Victorian economy.

The state's Tourism and Major Events Minister Tim Holding says such shows "attract tourists to Victoria, generate huge economic benefits and create jobs. International blockbuster musical seasons like Wicked rank alongside major events the Australian Open and spring racing carnival."

The perception that Sydney has fallen behind in the events stakes resonates beyond the arts and political worlds. In a survey released last month and commissioned by the Victorian government, 53 per cent of respondents said Melbourne hosted more significant sports and cultural events than Sydney. Only 33 per cent nominated Sydney as the events pacesetter. In a survey 10 years ago, 48 per cent named Sydney and 39 per cent named Melbourne as the events leader.

"Major Events Victoria and the Victorian government see the benefits of [big cultural events] and they are savvy and on the mark. The minute a show opens in America or in England, they are on to it," Frost says, adding that newish events organisation Events NSW has consulted him about bringing a first-run musical to Sydney. "They are trying hard, but they know they have to try harder to get a project, to get some runs on the board."

Like Frost, Capon believes complacency based on Sydney's undeniable appeal to tourists is corroding the city's cultural vitality. "Sydney is the image of the country; it's the destination, many people say it's just been a bit too easy," he says.

Capon brings up Melbourne's wildly popular Winter Masterpieces series. Since 2004, this series of eight blockbuster exhibitions has showcased everything from impressionist and Dali masterworks to artefacts from Pompeii. Collectively, the exhibitions have drawn about 1.6 million people to Melbourne's galleries and museums at a time of year when visitors traditionally stay away. Capon says wistfully: "The state got behind it [Winter Masterpieces]; the city's got behind it. In that respect, I have to say I think Sydney is a bit dysfunctional." He stresses that the gallery is addressing this issue with the Sydney City Council, the NSW government and Events NSW. In June, AGNSW will present Paths to Abstraction, an ambitious exhibition tracing the history of abstract art and featuring works by Monet and Picasso.

In the meantime, the director worries his gallery is running out of space. The flagship state galleries in Brisbane, Victoria and Canberra, he contends, have more floor space than the main gallery servicing the nation's biggest city. He says the AGNSW will outgrow its picturesque site across from Sydney's Domain once a new exhibition space, housing the collection of arts patron John Kaldor, opens in 2011. He surveys the school groups and tourists with telltale daypacks who have thronged his gallery on this blockbuster-free weekday, and says dejectedly: "I look at this building and I say 'What more can we do with it?'"

IN June, 25,000 people flocked to the banks of the Brisbane River to see the Paris Opera Ballet perform Rudolf Nureyev's La Bayadere. This is hardly the most crowd-pleasing ballet in the classical repertoire, yet the season - exclusive to Brisbane - sold out, and 20 per cent of the ticket buyers came from interstate.

The Queensland Art Gallery and its sister institution, the vast, airy Gallery of Modern Art, have attracted similar, record-breaking crowds to their exclusive exhibitions, including an Andy Warhol retrospective and, most recently, American impressionist and realist works from New York's Metropolitan Museum. Between them, GoMA and QAG drew 1.2 million visitors last year. This is a remarkable 200 per cent surge in attendance since GoMA became QAG's second site in late 2006 .

Such crowds would have been unimaginable in the early 80s, when historian and journalist Ross Fitzgerald wrote that Queensland was "a cultural wasteland". Now he tells Review: "Brisbane has certainly changed from being a cultural wasteland to a very vibrant, cosmopolitan city." He believes Brisbane's arts scene has more of an avant-garde edge than Sydney's or Melbourne's. He also observes that "in Brisbane and Melbourne, state governments have invested hugely and effectively in arts infrastructure and building in a way Sydney hasn't".

Fitzgerald, who moved to Sydney from Brisbane several years ago, argues the NSW government is in a political bind over arts infrastructure when the state's key amenities such as hospitals and the rail system are rundown. "Sydney certainly needs a new venue, but arts tends not to translate into votes when the health and transport infrastructure is just hopeless; in a way, they'd be punished by the electorate if there was huge arts spending [now]," he says.

QAG chief Tony Ellwood agrees Brisbane is "undergoing a cultural renaissance. Since the redevelopment of the cultural precinct including the building of GoMA and refurbishment of QAG and the State Library, there has been a shift in both perception and commitment to the arts in Queensland ... The arts in Queensland also attracts unprecedented state government, local government and corporate levels of investment. This enables what we do to have a dramatically higher profile both locally, regionally and nationally. It [Brisbane] is also fast becoming an attractive interstate cultural tourism destination."

But Richard Evans, chief executive of the Sydney Opera House, insists the claims being made for other interstate capitals are grossly exaggerated: "I think it is certainly true that Melbourne has had a very integrated approach to promoting Victoria; so much so there is this grand illusion of Melbourne being the centre of the arts in Australia.

"Statistically, of course, NSW has been the home for the audiences in terms of cultural activity. That is unsurprising, because Sydney is the key tourism city."

In the past financial year, 2.8 million foreigners visited NSW; almost twice as many as visited Victoria, according to Events NSW. Evans says the Sydney Opera House attracts 7.5 million visitors and 1.25 million ticket buyers a year. About 1000 people a day tour the venue, the renovated western foyer of which has just been unveiled. The NSW government funded this sleek refit to the tune of $38m.

However, repairs to the Opera House's most problematic venue, the Opera Theatre - which will cost up to $1 billion - are wreathed in uncertainty. Earlier this year Rees said the job would attract federal support, but Prime Minister Kevin Rudd sharply contradicted this.

Evans is clearly concerned about the stalemate. He warns the Opera House "has been running flat out for 36 years" and, before long, will need to close for repairs to airconditioning and backstage lifts. He says that "to close it for a year without addressing the essential things would seem to be a publicly unpalatable thing to do". In other words, Evans believes the public will not cop the country's best-known arts centre being shut down without the Opera Theatre's long-running problems being fixed.

While Sydney wrestles with venues issues, other capitals have seen a dramatic expansion of government-funded cultural buildings, from GoMA to Melbourne's City Recital Hall and new home for the Melbourne Theatre Company to Canberra's National Museum and National Portrait Gallery. The latter, admired for its understated elegance, took out this year's Australian Institute of Architects Sir Zelman Cowen Award, the nation's leading prize for public architecture.

In stark contrast, in 2007 the Institute of Architects declined to award its Sulman prize for public architecture in NSW.

The institute claimed the entries submitted failed to meet acceptable standards, partly because state government funding for them was so tight.

"The governments were not commissioning anything of outstanding quality and that concern remains," Howard Tanner, former president of the Institute of Architects told Review earlier this year. Tanner conceded the NSW government had renovated part of the Opera House and upgraded heritage buildings, but the bottom line was it had "not pursued important architectural commissions of its own". He added: "What's not happening in NSW can be judged by what is happening in Queensland and Victoria."

In May, internationally respected architect Philip Cox offended Sydneysiders en masse when he said their city was, well, ordinary-looking. Cox declared that government ineptitude, state and local government conflict, complacency and unimaginative design had resulted in Sydney being burdened with a "Third World airport", "non-event public spaces" and an over-reliance on Sydney Harbour.

Meanwhile, even before the backhoes move in, there is uproar over the biggest harbourside project in a generation, the $3bn, private-sector redevelopment of Barangaroo. The architects who won an international design competition to redevelop it have fallen out with former prime minister Paul Keating, who is involved with the project and has a radically different vision for the site.

South of the border, it's a different story. After its economy hit rock bottom in the early 90s, Victoria embraced large-scale urban projects including the ever-expanding Southbank and Federation Square cultural precincts. Former Victorian premier Jeff Kennett claims that in the 90s, $1bn was spent on new arts infrastructure in the state. "Today," he boasts, "we [Melbourne] have a wonderful suite of cultural assets unlike those in any other city." He adds: "Queensland, in terms of investment and commitment to the arts, has outstripped NSW in the last 10 years." Kennett came to power when the Victorian economy was on its knees and he eventually took on the arts portfolio with gusto. He says that to advance the arts, "you have got to have the passionate support of either the premier or the treasurer".

But because of internal dissension, he says, NSW ministers have been focused on their own fortunes. And when that occurs, "cultural issues have a low priority". Shortly before he was dumped, Rees rejected all these criticisms. In an email response sent by a spokeswoman, the then NSW premier said NSW was "home to some of the best cultural institutions in the country and indeed the world".

Rees said NSW was the nation's centre for film and television production, having garnered 63 per cent ($434m) of the national total in 2008-09. He added: "NSW also hosts Australia's most dynamic cultural events - the Sydney Festival, the Sydney Writers Festival, and the Biennale of Sydney - each of which receive state government support." (Significantly, he did not mention the troubled Sydney Film Festival. For years, this festival has been outshone by the larger Melbourne International Film Festival. Indeed, the SFF recently lost its third director in as many years, in the middle of a review aimed at securing its future.) Rees said his government spent more than $300m on the arts in this year's budget and, since 2002, has invested almost $50m in capital arts and cultural infrastructure, including $10m for renovations at the Museum of Contemporary Art at Circular Quay. He also mentioned the Sydney Theatre at Walsh Bay, even though the latter was largely funded by private developers.

He pointed out the NSW government reformed licensing laws to encourage live music in pubs and restaurants. These laws were welcomed, but they did not prevent the closing down in October of renowned pub music venue the Hopetoun, in inner Sydney. This closure hardened feelings that the Harbour City is unsympathetic to live bands compared with Melbourne, where pubs compete vigorously for talent.

(Review went to press before a decision was announced on who would be the next NSW arts minister.)

Nevin agrees that Sydney has done "pretty well" at expanding its theatre infrastructure. The highly respected actress and director has worked for the Queensland, Melbourne and Sydney theatre companies, and describes the growth of the visual arts in Queensland as extraordinary. She is pleased the MTC has a new home, but says this venue was being lobbied for 20 years ago. Given this, she argues that it shouldn't be taken as a sign of a sudden cultural flourishing in Victoria.

She believes "there has been a sad absence of leadership [for the arts] nationally, for a long time".

Geoff Parmenter is chief executive of Events NSW and he strongly denies the NSW capital has lost its cultural edge. "I think the days of Sydney's complacency are well and truly behind us," he declares.

Among other things, he says Events NSW has invested in the Sydney Festival's opening night next month, which is expected to attract more than 200,000 people, and helped secure the Edinburgh Tattoo for an exclusive visit in February.

He predicts "massive change" for Sydney's events calendar during the next three to five years. Then he boasts, as Sydneysiders are wont to do: "After all, the starting assets aren't too bad."