Opera Australia’s television experiment is a ratings hit, seen by almost double its annual stage audience.

Opera Australia’s TV experiment, the soap-opera inspired The Divorce, has proven to be a worthwhile gamble after recently released ABC television ratings showed the four episode serial reached 1.1 million viewers – just under double the number of attendees to Opera Australia’s onstage season over an entire year. Each episode of The Divorce, written by composer Elena Kats-Chernin and librettist Joanna Murray-Smith, reached an average of 484,000 television viewers, with 31,000 additional viewers via the ABC’s iView, per episode.

“We’re extremely happy,” Opera Australia Artistic Director Lyndon Terracini said of the superb ratings. “I’ve thought for a long time that contemporary opera would be best seen through a contemporary medium, like television. Presenting a present day opera in a 19th-century context, like the theatre, isn’t a good way of connecting with a contemporary audience. By putting an opera on television, using a format similar to the American style of soap-opera, we aimed to make the experience more familiar and accessible, and that’s paid off.”

Opera Australia Artistic Director Lyndon Terracini

The Divorce has...