Lisa Gasteen AO as Isolde in the Covent Garden’s Tristan and Isolde 2002

The Start

Est. 2011

Founded in 2011 by Lisa Gasteen AO, the Lisa Gasteen National Opera Program (LGNOP) offers developing Australian classical singers and repetiteurs training and career development, preparing them to be competitive when studying or working in Australia and abroad. The program is the key training organization that addresses the future vocal welfare of opera in Australia.

When Lisa returned to Australia in 2008, she realized that the career experience opportunities unavailable to her when studying remained scarce. Lisa reasons that instead of giving an overseas scholarship to a single singer, bringing internationally acclaimed coaches to Australia allows many Australians to gain more musical experience, useful contacts, and often a peer support network, all for the same cost.

The obvious path forward was to develop the Lisa Gasteen National Opera Program to do for opera what the Australian Ballet School, the National Institute of Dramatic Art, and the Australian National Academy of Music offer their respective art forms. Of these, LGNOP alone is proudly based in Queensland but operates nationally. Fortunately, thanks to continued strong private sponsorship, it conducts national auditions, offers full scholarships to offset costs arising from suspended jobs and rent, and attempts to locate free accommodation during the program.

The challenge remains to ensure LGNOP adjusts its annual project to reflect singers’ needs as they negotiate the volatile conditions within operatic culture.

LGNOP 2011

Early Days

2011 - 2017

Until 2017, the annual program offered about 20 singers and four trainee repetiteurs a month of individual and group training by respected musicians. Visiting staff have included John Fisher, then Head of Music at the NY Metropolitan Opera; Richard Hetherington, Head of Music at the Royal Opera House Covent Garden; conductors Giovanni Reggioli and Ward Stare; vocal coaches Philip Mayers and Australian-based experts Sharolyn Kimmorley, Stuart Maunder, Stephen Mould, and Jennifer Marten-Smith; and language coaches Teresa Desmarchelier, Olga Lipski, and Rosalia Miglioli. Singers Siegfried Jerusalem, Robert Lloyd, and the German agent Manuela Kursidem have also been on staff.

Recent Programs

2017 - 2023

  • In 2017, LGNOP made a significantshift by concentrating preparation on public performances of specific operas. This meant singers now auditioned for roles, and consequently, more advanced singers were chosen. Eight singers and two repetiteurs workshopped a performance of Eugene Onegin. The Queensland Symphony Orchestra invited LGNOP to participate in their concert performance of Bizet’s opera Carmen, conducted by Alondra de la Parra. Seven of the ten solo roles were LGNOP singers who had the benefit of a month’s preparation and their first experience singing with a full orchestra before a sell-out audience.

    The feature-length film on LGNOP, Love Opera, directed by Liselle Mei and produced by Freshwater Pictures, was based on this. In 2020, Love Opera was shown in selected cinemas across Australia and New Zealand and was included in the Antipodean sections of the Cannes, San Tropez, and Venice Film Festivals. In 2021, the film won Best Documentary at the Australian Screen Industry Network Awards.

  • In 2018, LGNOP set itself a very high bar by staging two performances of the Richard Strauss opera Ariadne auf Naxos, which also offered operatic variety for visiting Sydney and Melbourne opera fans who experienced Simone Young AM conducting opera. LGNOP formed a Queensland-based performance team, including Ensemble Q Orchestra, in which Queensland Conservatorium students and staff played alongside senior players from four state orchestras.

  • In 2019, LGNOP produced Otto Nicolai’s Die Lustigen Weiber von Windsor, a take on Shakespeare’s Merry Wives of Windsor. Support from Arts Queensland meant Richard Hetherington, Philip Mayers, and the American conductor Ward Stare could work with Heather Fairbairn, Ensemble Q, Sarka Budinska, and Stephen Mould to prepare this delightful opera. 4MBS radio station made a full sound recording, which is available on the LGNOP website.

  • 2020 posed insurmountable issues for LGNOP. As venues closed, COVID-19 left singers with broken contracts and often no income. The obvious decision was to make $50,000 available for competitive grants, each up to $5,000, open to the 140 LGNOP alumni. The criteria for such grants were that applicants required money to sustain vocal, role, and language coaching to prepare for future contracts. Two international and one Australian judge, all closely associated with LGNOP, selected 11 singers and one repetiteur based variously in Germany, the UK, and Australia.

  • In 2021, COVID-19 cancelled Victorian Opera’s invitation for LGNOP to co-share opera performances in VO’s subscription series. Given that Queensland had closed its borders, LGNOP decided to offer voice and language coaching to Queensland singers already contracted for that opera. Lisa also invited some talented Queensland Conservatorium and University of Queensland student singers to join for the two weeks of coaching. Lectures, updated headshots, biographies, and professional video audition recordings were also part of their LGNOP experience.

  • In 2022, some of these artists and others who also competed in auditions held nationally and in New Zealand performed in two delightful mid-nineteenth-century operas: Der häusliche Krieg by Franz Schubert and Die Opernprobe by Albert Lortzing. Ensemble Q was once again responsible for the orchestra, which included students from the Queensland Conservatorium Griffith University. Staff included Director Stuart Maunder AM, Conductor Johannes Fritzsch, LGNOP Artistic Associate Philip Mayers, Vocal Coach Jennifer Marten-Smith, and Chorus Master Sarka Budinska.

  • In 2023, The Lisa Gasteen National Opera Program’s (LGNOP) performance of Gustav Mahler’s Des Knaben Wunderhorn marked the second Australian orchestral rendition of this pivotal work in over thirty years. Performers included Conductor Simon Bruckard, Assistant Conductor for Simone Young AM and former LGNOP Alumnus (2016 and 2018), mezzo-soprano Catherine Carby, a former Queenslander now gracing the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, and baritone Oliver Boyd, LGNOP (2017), now a chorus member at Deutsche Oper Berlin. Accompanying them was the 64-piece Ensemble Q Academic Orchestra. In addition to this, LGNOP artists performed in a Liederabend lead by Philip Mayers, Sarka Budinska, and Sharolyn Kimmorley.