Company comes under fire after seeking unpaid supernumeraries for Aida.

Opera Australia has come in for criticism today after posting a callout for students currently undertaking a performance based degree to appear in next year’s Handa Opera on the Harbour. Gale Edwards’ production of Aida is being trailed as the biggest outdoor opera so far, yet it seems that the producers are unable or unprepared to offer any form of payment to those they thereby hope to recruit in supernumerary roles.

The seeming attempt to get something for nothing has prompted an immediate backlash with people accusing the national opera company of trying to engage “slave labour”, an ironic reference to the status of many of the onstage characters in Verdi’s Ancient Egyptian blockbuster.

In a well-argued piece on his blog, Aaron Kernaghan, a senior lawyer at Kernaghan & Associates and a vocal Opera Australia supporter, takes the producers to task for what he considers “a shameful and entirely regrettable situation and one that ought be stopped by an employer so large and so important in Australia’s performing arts.”

OA’s advertisment, reproduced on the popular bel canto website, says that students will need to “cover...