We understand that Opera Australia is about to appoint a music director.
Patrons have been told in confidence that the chosen one is Andrea Battistoni, a rising Italian conductor. So far, so promising. But Battisoni, 38, is already music director of Teatro Regio di Torino and, since this year, chief conductor of the Tokyo Philharmonic. Opera Australia would be the third job in his busy schedule. OA would get third claim to his attention, on another hemisphere.
This looks like a repetition of the ENO disaster, where the incoming music director has a parallel job at Opera New Zealand.
Opera Australia deserves better than this. It lost a chief executive and an artistic director in the past couple of years and is drifting aimlessly. Battisoni, who has not conducted OA for three years, is rooted in Italian opera and has shown no future vision.
He’s perfectly capable, but he’s the wrong captain for this national team at this parlous time.
Too late to find another skipper?
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