Opera Australia gets 4 million boost after lockdown SOS

With its winter season in ruins and its money-spinning blockbuster, The Phantom of the Opera, postponed, Opera Australia has been handed $4 million to ensure its survival.

The national arts company has been allocated the money from the federal government’s COVID-19 Arts Sustainability Fund, in addition to $1 million it received in May.

The announcement, fast-tracked by federal Arts Minister Paul Fletcher, indicates the depth of the financial crisis performing arts companies face across locked down states.

Postponed: Josh Piterman was to star in Phantom of the Opera, coming to Sydney and Melbourne. Credit:Johan Persson/Justin McManus

It came within days of Opera Australia’s artistic director Lyndon Terracini making a dramatic plea for state and federal assistance.

With COVID-19 cases spiking in NSW, theatre, music and festival producers are increasingly nervous around the length of lockdowns and capacity limits, and the confidence of theatre-going audiences once doors are open.

This year’s programs have often been created from the foundations of 2020 seasons hollowed out by the pandemic’s first and second waves, and some disrupted shows may not return.

Opera Australia’s co-production of Phantom brought in $20 million in ticket sales, and was weeks off making its Australian premiere on September 3 in Sydney, with a Melbourne opening on November 14.

The company has not ruled out rescheduling it as part of its annual Handa Opera on Sydney Harbour in 2022, while Opera Australia’s chief executive Rory Jeffes said he was hopeful its production of Wagner’s Ring Cycle at Brisbane’s Queensland Performing Arts Centre would proceed in October.

“We will still have the Ring Cycle in Queensland and we can see what we can announce at the back of this year. The big unknown is what the confidence of audiences will be,” Jeffes said.

“The problem with rescheduling seasons is there has to be an enormous amount of people who have to be available domestically and internationally and we are still working through that.”

Opera Australia banked $46 million from the sale of its Alexandria warehouse in Sydney but reported a $6.4 million operating deficit in 2020 on the back of a $63 million collapse in box office revenue.

Federal money would not solve all the company’s financial difficulties but it was an “incredible boost to morale in these dark days”, Mr Jeffes said.

“We had a battle last year but we are in a war now,” he said. “Given the length of time, and the unknowns of the future it is very draining on the company and everyone, and this is the reason some support like this a morale boost.”

Federal Opposition has joined calls for a national COVID-19 insurance scheme for the arts, entertainment and events industry be set up as a matter of urgency.

Commercial insurance was no longer available for COVID-19 for events. Labor Tony Burke said some businesses will now be assessing whether or not they can survive to the other side of the current restrictions.

Set up in June 2020, the sustainability fund exists for arts organisations in financial peril and requires the successful applicant to demonstrate their organisation is at risk “of not being able to sustain themselves to reach the end of the pandemic and return to normal operations”.

Opera Australia was vital to the ecology and health of the arts sector, Mr Fletcher said, employing more than 400 arts workers, including costume makers, crew and set designers.

“Opera Australia has the largest annual revenue of the arts companies supported by the Australia Council,” Mr Fletcher said. “It is the biggest employer amongst them. In a normal year, it presents a large number of high-quality productions in Sydney, Melbourne and other cities, trains many people who go on to work elsewhere in the arts in Australia and globally, and it has specialised resources and capabilities that, if lost, would be a blow not just to this company but to Australia’s entire arts ecosystem.”

To date 10 organisations have drawn down on the arts fund, leaving almost $15 million unallocated.

Recipients include Melbourne Symphony Orchestra ($3 million), Melbourne Art Foundation ($330,000), National Institute of Dramatic Art ($3.75 million) Museum of Contemporary Art ($2 million), Australian Brandenburg Orchestra ($1.14 million), Queensland Ballet ($1.9 million), The Wheeler Centre ($500,000), Belvoir St Theatre ($500,000) and Sydney Theatre Company ($2.013 million).

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Linda Morris is an arts writer at The Sydney Morning Herald

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