Simon O’Neill
ONZM

Dear Operatic Friends of Aotearoa


Regards from my Tristan filled studio here in Tamaki Makaurau. I hope Michael doesn’t mind me writing to you all. I just wanted to follow up on the Radio NZ story this morning concerning the departure of the three directors from the New Zealand Opera board. 

It was an honour to represent many fellow musicians and lovers of opera in Aotearoa and comment along with ex-head of music, Lindy Tennant Brown on the disturbing direction the remaining board and their support of the current General Manager is taking the art form in our country.

Commissioning key creatives who have no knowledge of the art form, who are openly ignorant and in one case alarmingly disrespectful of the art form is undoing the years of work the company has dedicated to making international level opera available in this country.

I believe that this is a deliberate and considered move by the General Director.  As is his decision to keep international level opera/music knowledge out of the senior leadership team, so that music can be sidelined and minimized. 

New Zealand Opera and its General Director are the gatekeeper of the bulk of opera arts funding in our country (around 6.5 million dollars). We should all be concerned about where and for what reason our precious arts money is being spent. 

I shall be appearing on TV3 this evening and Newstalk ZB with Heather du Plessis Allan at just after 5 pm this afternoon to comment further. 

It is really unfortunate that the headlines on opera in Aotearoa are diverted to this circus side show instead of focusing on the phenomenal success of our operatic singers worldwide – Manase Latu and Samson Setu at the Metropolitan Opera, Filipe Manu at Covent Garden, Eliza Boom at the Bayerischer Staatsoper, Madison Nonoa, Benson Wilson, not to mention the 2022 Opera National de Paris season with Amina Edris, Thomas Aitkens, Pene Pati and Simon O’Neill all in leading roles.

It is a dreadful state of affairs that the many marketing people employed by New Zealand Opera, in addition to the PR agency also drawing precious funds away from the arts, are not motivated to promote this real success story. 


Sincerely

Simon O’Neill ONZM

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