After off-stage drama in 2017, State Opera of South Australia able to resume experimental zeal under new leaders

The Barber of Seville in 2021 was return to a mainstay production, with State Opera of South Australia otherwise continuing its experimental spirit after the 2018 regime change.
Image by Soda Street Productions, courtesy State Opera of South Australia

The State Opera of South Australia bounced back and through Timothy Sexton’s shock exit and the Covid-19 pandemic restrictions from 2020 with no loss to its adventurous spirit.  

Timothy Sexton, State Opera artistic director and chief executive from 2011, was 2009 South Australian of the Year in the arts category and due to be named in the Adelaide Festival Centre's hall of fame. In 2017 Sexton was asked to resign after his arrest for unlawful sexual relationship with two girls. He was later found guilty of 17 sexual crimes against three girls and sentenced to 14 years prison.

In 2018, a new era started under artistic director Stuart Maunder and executive director Yarmila Alfonzetti but with the same experimental zeal. Although the State Opera gained the remodelled Her Majesty’s Theatre in Grote Street, Adelaide city, as its home in 2020, it ventured into some unusual locations for its 2021 season with an emphasis on Australian voices in opera.

A theme of Lost Operas of Oz brought the revival of two Australian chamber operas Love Burns and The Tell-Tale Heart. Love Burns wasthe story of The Honeymoon Killers, who seduce rich widows, take away their fortunes and then their lives. Written by Adelaide composer Graeme Koehne with a libretto by Louis Nowra. It was performed at Plant 4 in new Bowden housing development.

The Tell-Tale Heart, based on Edgar Allan Poe’s classic tale of gothic fiction – of murder and madness – presented as a tour de force one man opera (starring tenor James Egglestone) at Z Ward, in the former Glenside psychiatric institution. Rounding out the triptych of lost operas was Voss, a co-production with Victorian Opera, and a return to Her Majesty’s Theatre for one night. Richard Meale’s epic score was brought to life for the first time in 30 years by an acclaimed all-Australian cast, led by Samuel Dundas as Voss and Emma Pearson as Laura, the Adelaide Symphony Orchestra and State Opera Chorus under the baton of Richard Mills.

Through 2021 restrictions, the State Opera added textural richness with Stephen Sondheim’s Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street, with conductor Graham Abbott return for the mainstay in Rossini’s comic masterpiece The Barber of Seville.