Opera Queensland is still putting the finishing touches to its 2025 season, but CEO and Artistic Director Patrick Nolan is keen to talk, and with good reason.
While opera companies everywhere look for ways to attract new audiences, OQ may have the answer with its innovative mainstage and touring productions finding their way onto stages all around the country, including those of its national and state counterparts, as well as overseas.
Patrick Nolan. Photo © Paul Blackmore
This year alone, OQ has co-presented The Barber of Seville in Seattle and Des Moines, while its productions of La traviata (a co-production with SOSA and WAO) and Orpheus and Eurydice (in association with Circa) were staged by Opera Australia at the Sydney Opera House. The latter opens at West Australian Opera this week, and Nolan’s production of Così fan tutte was also picked up by State Opera South Australia.
Next year, OQ’s second collaboration with Circa, Dido and Aeneas, joins La traviata in Sydney, while Orpheus and Eurydice will be presented at the Edinburgh International Festival before returning for OA’s 2025 Melbourne season.
“It’s exciting to see our productions being embraced by audiences around the country,” Nolan tells Limelight. “It’s a flipping of the usual narrative of the national company touring productions to the states, so clearly we’re doing something right.”
Outside Brisbane, OQ visits up to 30 regional locations every year, with shows such as Are You Lonesome Tonight, Lady Sings the Maroons and Do We Need Another Hero, all of which embrace the ‘crossover’ genre. On average, OQ’s regional programs attract an annual audience of at least 10,000, many of whom attend free of charge due to partnerships with local councils.
Thanks to a Playing Australia grant, Are You Lonesome Tonight will soon embark on a tour of South Australia, NSW and Queensland, concluding at next year’s Festival of Outback Opera.
Conceived by Nolan and premiering in Rockhampton in 2021, it combines music from Puccini and Verdi to Slim Dusty and Dolly Parton.
“The idea forthe show was born of a conversation I had at the check-in counter at the Longreach Motor Inn, when doing an initial recce for the Festival of Outback Opera,” Nolan explains.
“Upon seeing that I was with Opera Queensland, the lovely woman at the check-in said, ‘Opera! Oh, you’ll be doing that without me.’ I realised then that we had to find a way to shift this bias – one that is by no means limited to the check-in counter at the Longreach Motor Inn.”
“By telling a story that explored the similarities between opera and country music, we could introduce people who’d never dream of going to the opera to the wonders of its music and characters.”
“The effectiveness of this approach was best demonstrated in the audiences we attracted. Fifty people turned up to seeA Night with Opera Queensland, while 500 people turned up for Are You Lonesome Tonight! Since then, we’ve received regular messages asking us to bring it back.”
Marcus Corowa, Jonathan Hickey and Irena Lysiuk in OQ’s Are You Lonesome Tonight. Photo © Jade Ferguson
Outback Opera
OQ’s annual Festival of Outback Opera also continues to gain momentum as it enters its fifth year.
Held over 10 days in Winton and Longreach, it is a favourite with locals and tourists, attracting headline artists such as Emma Matthews, Kate Miller-Heidke, Teddy Tahu-Rhodes and Kang Wang,
In a moment of typical understatement, Nolan drops into the conversation, “Did I tell you we’ve got Sumi Jo joining us in the Outback next year?” His excitement at having the Grammy Award-winning coloratura soprano and bel canto specialist at the festival is clearly evident.
“Every year, as word of our festival spreads, we aim to offer our audiences something special, and having a singer of Sumi Jo’s calibre with us suggests the world is taking notice of Opera Queensland.”
Nolan adds, “Sumi Jo has performed at some of the most prestigious houses around the world and at the World Cup and Olympic Games. I can’t wait to introduce her to the spectacular sunsets and those endless starry skies above Winton’s Australian Age of Dinosaurs and Camden Park Station in Longreach.It’s going to be quite an experience for us all.”
And a lucrative one, too. This year’s festival injected $1.5 million into the Queensland economy, of which just over $1 million was spent in Winton and Longreach.
The economic and social benefits of the festival aren’t lost on the towns’ councils, which recognise it as a key plank in the state’s 10-year Creative Together 2020–2030 roadmap.
Along with generous support from Hayman’s Electrical and The University of Queensland, the Queensland Government and Tourism and Events Queensland are also key investors in the festival.
Sumi Jo. Photo © Kim Young Jun
First Nations
OQ is about to undertake two new First Nations projects, the first of which is the brand-new opera Naria (Guardians)with a story and music by Jess Hitchcock and a libretto by Alison Croggon.
Inspired by stories from Hitchcock’s Papua New Guinean and Torres Strait Islander heritage, it is described as a fairytale for our times and a passionate fable about love, family and the resilience of community in the face of overwhelming forces of destruction.
The second project will see the development of a collection of songs in the traditional languages of the various language groups across Queensland.Artists including Marcus Corowa will engage with First Nations communities throughout the project.
Both initiatives will build on the success of this year’s world premiere of Straight from the Strait, which attracted the largest daily attendance by a First Nations audience in the history of the Queensland Performing Arts Centre (based on the number of MOBTIX sold).
The musical tells the story of the railway workers who set the world record for laying the longest stretch of track in a single day. Beginning life as a play, it was in development for nearly two decades.
“As soon as I was introduced to Straight from the Strait, I knew it was a story that needed to be given the necessary resources and financial investment to create a work that could sit alongside any major new Australian production.”
He continues, “the show captures the joyous creative energy of Torres Strait Islanders in the most beautiful way. The great indicator of its success, of course, is the way it was embraced by audiences. You couldn’t get a seat to the last two performances.”
Talks are currently underway for a national tour, and Nolan says several presenters have already expressed an interest.
“As Her Excellency the Honourable Dr Jeannette Young, Governor of Queensland said on opening night, ‘The whole of the world needs to see this production.’ We can only but agree.”
Jess Hitchcock. Photo Ian Laidlaw
A Sustainable Future?
Given OQ’s almost ubiquitous nature, it is hard to imagine too many other opera companies with as large a footprint anywhere in the world.
Little wonder, then, that the OQ Board has seen fit to extend Nolan’s tenure for a third consecutive term.
“It’s a pleasing show of faith from the OQ Board,” he says. “However, the Board must also be given credit for the way it’s carefully managed the governance of the company, allowing us to run with new ideas while maintaining a careful watch on the finances.”
Nolan’s modesty belies the extent to which he, as both CEO and Artistic Director, is just as preoccupied with the financial realities of producing opera.
“A major state arts organisation needs to present a minimum of three major works annually within its capital city to maintain a viable presence,” he says as conversation turns to the challenges facing the company.
This is in line with recommendations made by the National Opera Review and agreed to by the Australian Government in 2017.
Nolan continues, “This enables a company like Opera Queensland to sustain audience development, to provide opportunities for corporate partners and philanthropic donors, and most importantly to offer employment to artists and creative workers.”
The 2024 season did indeed boast three major productions – Dido and Aeneas; Straight from the Strait; and Lucia di Lammermoor, presented as part of the brand-new festival Brisbane Bel Canto, which Nolan and co-founder Richard Mills hope will spark renewed interest in that style of opera.
While Nolan remains tight-lipped about much of next year’s season, tickets for next September’sLa bohème (a co-production with WA Opera) have already gone on sale, breaking the single-day box-office record set by Aida in 2023. This despite a recent trend to only purchase tickets a fortnight before a performance.
Paul O’Neill and Elena Perroni in OQ and WAO’s 2023 season of La bohème in Perth. Image © West Beach Studio
It’s not all good news, however. Nolan is quick to bring up his concerns regarding the shortfall in government funding.
“With increases in CPI not being matched by increases in government funding over the past seven years, we are effectively $400,000 down in real terms, relative to 2016,” he explains, adding, “This will increase to $500,000 in 2025. It doesn’t exactly make things easy.”
“If rises in other associated costs are included, like venue rental, which has increased 42 percent since 2016, and wages, which have gone up by 32 percent in the same period, it becomes impossible for us to sustain the quality, reach and level of activity we need to deliver to our core mission.”
Nevertheless, Nolan remains optimistic about the future of the company, as well as opera in Queensland and across the nation.
“After our very first concert for Festival of Outback Opera, Darren, one of the Winton locals who had helped us in the setup, approached me and said, ‘I’d never seen opera before tonight, and now I understand why people want to travel all this way to be here. That was one of the most magical nights of my life.’ I’m reasonably confident that there are plenty more people like Darren for us to connect with.”
Opera Queensland presents La bohème at the Lyric Theatre, QPAC, Brisbane, 4–13 September, 2025. Information about OQ’s other performances can be found here.
West Australian Opera and Circa present Opera Queensland/Circa’s Orpheus and Eurydice at His Majesty’s Theatre, Perth, 24 October – 2 November.