Ambitions to create a top-class opera company in Canberra have collapsed in recriminations.
"I gave my soul. We failed. It could have happened. It was a great opportunity," the founder and now former artistic director of National Opera says now after resigning.
Baritone Peter Coleman-Wright set up the company with great ambitions in 2019. He brought immense experience in the global opera world, having sung on the world's biggest-name opera stages, including the Met in New York, Covent Garden in London and La Scala in Milan.
And perhaps he brought an unrealistic view of what was possible in Canberra - though hitting town as the pandemic hit town didn't help.
His aim was to create a truly national, even international, company fitting for a capital city. But the venture failed to get any funding from the ACT government. Nor, in his view, did it get enough support from business or other private sponsors.
"It lacked any real support from anyone, whether philanthropic or government," he says today.
National Opera company still exists, but with pared down ambitions.
"We focus on providing employment and performance opportunities for Australian artists, particularly those in the Canberra region," its "about-us" statement says.
Where Peter Coleman-Wright dreamt of - and put on - interesting but non-mainstream works, the company now plans smaller-scale productions.
It's about to put on a short (hour long) Puccini opera. Suor Angelica will run at the Albert Hall on March 7 and March 10 (one performance on the Thursday evening and two during the Sunday).
Even that has been a struggle.
Tenor and president of the company Andrew Barrow said it hadn't been easy to find rehearsal space. The Australian National University hadn't been forthcoming. It's true that its School of Music is being renovated but he also detected a lack of enthusiasm for the arts there - "It's not been a priority for the ANU. Universities see arts as not generating revenue," he said.
In the end, he was grateful to Radford College for letting the company rehearse there.
And he was grateful to The Village Building Co for sponsoring the production. That sponsorship and the bums on seats in March provide the revenue.
It's true that low budget doesn't necessarily mean low quality. Some low budget productions buzz and fizz where grander singers snooze.
The company emphasizes that the current singers are talented and professional, though they often have other jobs (Emma Mauch who sings the title role at Albert Hall, for example, is a midwife).
But it is still a long way from the ambitions of four years ago.
The pandemic didn't help Peter Coleman-Wright just as his new company started.
Nor, perhaps, did the programs he chose - two operas for opera buffs: a Mozart, but a rarely performed one, and a demanding Handel opera. The popular classics like La Boheme weren't his way.
And then the ACT government chose not to allocate the $100,000 which National Opera applied for in the Emerging Arts Organisation Investment category.
The government handed out more than $9 million a year to 29 arts organisations. Warehouse Circus got $150,000; the Canberra Symphony Orchestra got $615,000. The punk band Glitoris received $42,000 "to support production and promotion of social justice-themed album".
After the rebuff, the artistic director said: "That's kicked us in the guts. We have to reassess everything."
Reassess he did - and left.
"Nobody came to the party. I think they just wanted something more Canberra-centric.
