New Zealand Opera is currently recruiting six key admin and management roles. Last year saw two board resignations, including its chair. New Zealand Opera say they are "in the process of redefining their purpose, vision and strategic plan." All this follows the appointment in June of a new General Director Thomas De Mallet Burgess.
Photo: Provided
Over the summer, New Zealand Opera have been advertising not one but six key roles in their team, including Head of Music and Director of Artistic Operations. Last year also saw the departure from the opera's board of chair John Harvey and Donald Trott. Trott was a major force in the formation of New Zealand Opera and in the development of the artform over the last 40 years.
Quite some changes then. Indeed, as part of their job advertisements, New Zealand Opera say they are "in the process of redefining their purpose, vision and strategic plan." All this, following the appointment in June of a new General Director Thomas De Mallet Burgess.
Thomas comes to our national company from innovative Western Australian company Lost and Found, which he founded, who present unusual operas in found spaces. Thomas has also directed acclaimed opera for everyone from The Royal Opera House Covent Garden to Canadian Opera Company, but as he tells Standing Room Only's Mark Amery it was his experience working on a large scale that saw him wanting to explore a more intimate relationship between performer and audience.
Now, with New Zealand Opera, Thomas is unapologetic about what he calls a "reimagining"' of opera in New Zealand. Thomas says many of the changes were already in train before he arrived but "the board had an opportunity to appoint many different candidates for the role of General Director of New Zealand Opera and chose me - and I think part of the decision behind that was embracing the idea that the company needed to and could change.”
“I’m asking the question what does opera mean for New Zealand and from that question all sorts of possibilities arise.”
Thomas tells us he's interested in seeing opera do more, smaller opera, supporting more local writers, working digitally and seeing NZ Opera supporting the entire sector, which has impressed him with its activity. Keeping the loyalty of opera's existing audience he says he understands means walking "a fine line".
In interview Thomas discusses some of his previous work with Lost and Found in Australia, where he staged opera in an aquatic centre, on a beach, in a hotel and at a synagogue. On his website he talks about as a director being interested in re-imagining "the relationship between artist and audience exploring unexpected and often intimate encounters with opera". Newspaper the West Australian described Lost and Found as "one of the few genuinely disruptive arts organisations in Australia".
How much disruption is caused in New Zealand remains to be seen. 2019 sees Thomas deliver a smaller programme put in place by his predecessor Stuart Maunder (now Artistic Director of State Opera South Australia) to enable change in the organisation and balance the books. And even that is not all that conventional: Benjamin Britten's Turn of the Screw and comedy Rossini's The Barber of Seville.
