For this ‘composer’, the act of operatic creation is a case of stitching together the mouldering body parts of the greats.

Decisions, decisions, decisions. I have never been very good at decisions. Some people leap into decision-making as if they were at the beach. They stride down to the water’s edge and without flinching dive into the ocean, surfacing with a whip of the head and the spray of achievement. I tend to walk down slowly, then inch my way out through the water, jumping up over the waves, whimpering a little as the cold water splashes on my witchety-grub body until I can’t bear it anymore and finally plunge in.

I have the same approach when it comes to creativity. Over the last months I have been working on a new show called Opera – The Opera. It takes the best music and characters from the great operas and stuffs them into a new story, which will be performed in November by the post graduate opera students of the Western Australian Academy of the Performing Arts in Perth.

I admit I have shamelessly stolen music from the greats – Mozart, Puccini, Verdi, Dvořák, Rossini and Wagner. Hours of copying...