'Young blood' to steer Opera Australia's new direction

Alex Budd was unveiled as its new chief executive officer on Tuesday, seven months after Fiona Allan abruptly left the nation's largest performing arts company.

Esteemed Italian conductor Andrea Battistoni takes the music director baton while Glyn Davis will take over as board chairman.

Opera Australia has been on an executive recruitment drive after Ms Allan's shock exit in January, just three years into her role, and as it tries to turn around 2024's box office slump and an operating deficit of $10.6 million.

It is also trying to bounce back from 2024's loss of Jo Davies as artistic director, which it blamed on differences of opinion on artistic innovation and commercial imperatives.

Rather than faze him, the personnel overhaul inspired Battistoni, who has previously led orchestras in Opera Australia's productions of well-known works of Tosca and Aida.

"There is a certain turnover, but all over the world if you look at orchestras, choruses, they are all acquiring new faces and young blood," the 38-year-old told AAP.

"It's a very good time to work with these forces, and one as good as Opera Australia, to build a repertoire, to build an identity, to build a sound where there is a mixture of great experience of certain players, but also fresh energy of the next generation."

In a statement, the company said the appointment of Mr Budd, a former Opera Australia employee and current director of Canberra Theatre Centre, would strengthen its "place as the nation's premier opera company".

"(Mr Budd's) leadership will secure an artistically rewarding and sustainable future for Opera Australia," Professor Davis, the new chair, said.

"Recent years have thrown some serious challenges at the company, handled with dedication and determination by the Opera Australia team."

Opera Australia, marking its 70th anniversary in 2025, has a chance to reconnect a new generation with its "healthily old-fashioned" art form, Battistoni said.

"I say healthily, because it can be revolutionary, that in an age where we are all so connected and disconnected by amazing technology and the digital world, the theatre can be, in a way, a cure to this detachment from reality and attachment to art, beauty, and the soul of humanity," he said.

Opera Australia earlier this year announced a return to some of its milestone productions.

Its Sydney 2026 program includes Moffatt Oxenbould's production of Madama Butterfly, and Graeme Murphy's The Merry Widow.

In Melbourne, the company's first new production of La Boheme in 15 years, as well as La Traviata directed by Sarah Giles, are highlights.

Australian Associated Press