Craig Hassall has refuted claims that OA is selling its Melbourne Opera Centre to ease financial pressures.

Opera Australia CEO Craig Hassall has today refuted allegations that the sale of its current offices in Melbourne is in response to recommendations made in the recently released discussion paper of the National Opera Review.

An article published on Friday by the Daily Review claimed that Opera Australia was “cashing out of Melbourne,” and that the Southbank-based Opera Centre had been “quietly put on the market” in an apparent bid to ease financial shortfalls. However Hassall today rejected those claims, confirming that the sale of the Melbourne offices and rehearsal rooms had been publically announced with a press release from Opera Australia, and that the company’s finances had not been a factor in its decision to sell. The Daily Review article also suggested that the move to sell up in Melbourne had been prompted by conclusions outlined in the recently published discussion paper of the National Opera Review, which has been investigating the artistic and financial health of Australia’s four most heavily subsidised opera companies. However Hassall said the sale had “absolutely nothing to do with the National Opera Review,” but...