Barry Kosky hoed into Opera Australia this week, calling it a “disaster” and “a juggernaut out of control”, a view with which may opera lovers would concur.
Fiona Janes is the singer running the campaign against the current management. While she has a personal axe to grind and might reasonably be described as disaffected, she makes much sense. And she’s spot on about the construction of OA chairman Ziggy’s Zwitkowski’s committee to appoint a panel to choose a new musical director.
This is the letter:
Dear Ziggy,
A very interesting piece in today’s SMH regarding the panel that will decide the future of Opera Australia. Might I point out just a couple of glaring problems!
Firstly there is no representative from what you call the side of the “dissidents” or the “democratic” opera side yet six from yours or Adrians.
Secondly, Yvonne Kenny was one of the singers responsible for getting rid of Simone and personally brought Hickox in with a few others. While I have the greatest respect for her as an artist it is true that she has a lot at stake right now — career wise and very much in with Adrian therefore will do anything to accommodate.
Neil Armfeld — Adrian’s favourite director isn’t going to rock the boat.
David Malouf has proved quite openly that he will do anything to tow the line and support the bad decision making of Adrian and the board.
Trevor Green was a Hickox friend and outspoken against the “democrats”.
Jonathon Summers — fine artist but again a fence sitter and pal of Adrian’s.
As Sarah Billinghurst was part of the last decision making I do not have great faith their either — also an Adrian pal and pal of various favourite singers.
The only reasonable choice is Richard Mills.
So in all I’d say the Board has played it very safe for their side and probably got the majority of names from Adrian and his cronies.
I am very aware that senior members of Arts organisation have spoken with you and some have said you must start all over again. The growing distrust for Adrian now is extraordinary so any recommendations he has made will simply be self-serving whereas Kirsti and I expect nothing.
This is a frosted coated panel that will simply do whatever the Board and Adrian want. How widely they canvas and absorb disparate opinion is another thing altogether. I only hope they are able to listen to all sides and all those patrons, sponsors, subscribers, artists and senior members within the artistic community who have been rallying behind the scenes for an honest and fair change.
Frankly I do not believe this to be a true and fair representation of the operatic community. Is Adrian to still rule the roost when the company has failed so miserably artistically and financially under his poor leadership? The question of Adrian not being part of the structure somehow in the background is pure fantasy. How is this improving OA and it’s general public image when he is the problem? You will simply get more of the same. I guess Rowena is still having her way — more the pity.
I was under the impression from you that there maybe some hope for better things — sadly this panel seems purely cosmetic.
Best wishes,
Fiona
Dear Fiona,
Stop before it’s too late. It’s already too late. Just stop.
Your gratuitous, bitchy, personal evaluations have no special standing. You’ve made yourself look sillier, smaller-minded and meaner than you probably are. Complaining because you haven’t been made more of a star doesn’t give your opinions any value or you an standing. You’ve been on the wrong end of someone’s judgments and you didn’t like it. Tough. Your judgments aren’t any more valuable or better than theirs. You want to be the director? Apply.
Oh, and by the way, it’s TOE the line, not TOW the line. If you’re going to bitch, get things right. Sloppiness like this suggests the rest of it is sloppy too. But better still, keep your bitching to your kitchen and your friends. I’m not interested, and I doubt your ideas about AO are half as valuable as you think they are.
Oh seriously Fiona, it’s time to shut up now. It’s boring. Your broken record is boring and inaccurate.
If you’ve been so hard done by by OA but still have a top voice, why aren’t any of the state opera companies falling over themselves to hire you now? You’re available, aren’t you? Or are you too proud to work for OQ, VO, SOSA or WAO? To not be hired by one company might be sold as nepotism or a conspiracy, but five? Doesn’t that tell you something?
Next you’ll be saying Adrian and Richard have gone out of their way to besmirch you with all these other managements. (And that they were on the grassy knoll when Kennedy was shot.)
Joanna Hetherington seems to be doing well herself in terms of bile and vituperation (by the way does anyone except for indignant letter-writers ever use words like that?). Anyone who has seen first hand the environment within OA over the last few decades might not be quite so quick to lash out at Fiona and her supporters. Damaged workplaces damage people, and bullying can have a devastating and lasting effect. I feel for Fiona and can sympathise that she is trying to effect change, even if her methods seem a little desperate, bitter or clumsy. OA would do well to show some duty of care and bring her into the process in some capacity – as she points out, the opportunity is there for more open communication. Let’s hope they’re finally listening.
Not another diatribe from the sore loser pen of Fiona Janes.
Her appalling emails and self serving press interviews reveal nothing about the fact that she and others of her supporters, are all Simone Young devotees from way back, and have carried on a pernicious and malevolent rear guard action as way of revenge for the sacking of Simone Young in 2003.
She and her partner returned to Australia on the back of Simone’s promise of a full time future for them both with the company. Geoffrey Black, Bernadette Cullen, Kirsty Harms and others all believed that Simone would give them all a lovely, starry future, with leading roles, and plaudits forever and ever. But when it looked like her successor – the late Richard Hickox, was not interested in their burnt out voices, and widening bums, it looked like their futures were gone for good.
Their only alternative was to attack the O.A with as much bile and vituperation as they could muster, digging up every disenchanted opera devotee, ex singer or ex conductor they could find with a chip on their shoulder so they could blame everyone else but themselves.
Kosky’s amazing interview needs to be read in the light of a very revealing interview he did in September last year, when he postured that the OA should be run by a single artistic director, responsible alone to the government, without the benefit of a board placing controls on him or her. This is why he abuses the OA – he wants to be that grand master of operatic arts – and is rather miffed that the OA has stopped mounting his genuinely distasteful and imitative productions.
J. Hetherington
I’m not sure Barry Kosky is a good authority on what constitutes good opera. His ‘look how clever I am ‘ production of Turandot, which I thought showed profound contempt for both the audience and the performers, kept me away from the AO for years.