International directors and professionals at home have spoken out condemning a report that says Australian opera singers aren’t respected abroad. The claims, reported last week on industry website ArtsHub, were made by David Barnard, a conductor and opera répétiteur, who was awarded a Churchill Trust Fellowship to undertake a seven-week tour of European opera houses as part of his professional development. Barnard also described Australian opera company artistic directors as “self-promoters”, criticised them for taking additional fees for conducting and directing their own companies, and launched a swingeing attack on the judgement of Victorian Opera and the competence of its AD Richard Mills.

As part of a strongly worded rebuttal, Opera Queensland’s Artistic Director Lindy Hume spoke to Limelight last week calling many of Barnard’s statements “irresponsible and his arguments “not sustainable.” “I don’t know this guy, I’ve never met him – if I have I can’t recall, but what his comments show is an extremely narrow perspective and a surprisingly limited understanding,” she says. Meanwhile Kasper Holten, Director of Opera at the Royal Opera House, has told Limelight that on the contrary, Covent Garden has been “very impressed with the standard of singers coming out of...