My mum [Anne-Maree McDonald] was an opera singer and was back onstage by the time I was two or three months old, doing Yum-Yum and Peep-Bo in Opera Australia’s The Mikado. I had a full-time nanny and was all around the country with my folks until we moved to London when I was five. We went over there for dad [Stuart Maunder, Artistic Director of State Opera of South Australia] to work at the Royal Opera House where he was resident directing.

Lucy Maunder. Photo supplied

I can’t really remember much of that time, but as a baby, anywhere they went, I went. I know my parents put me in a carrier in the stalls of the opera theatre or in the pit while they were working onstage. There was one time when dad called us to say that the lead baritone in Massenet’s Manon was sick and they didn’t have a cover, so dad was going to walk the role while someone sang it from the wings. Mum and I got dressed up because it was opening night and raced there to see him onstage with the...