In the Australian opera landscape, a world premiere of an opera is a very unusual event. Have a look at what’s programmed for 2013. Neither Opera Australia nor the four state companies are premiering any new work of substance. The Victorian Opera will premiere The Magic Pudding by Calvin Bowman, but that is a children’s opera – a format that opera companies like to use to tick the “new work” box without having to take the artistic and financial risk of producing a mainstage world premiere that is a serious statement by a composer.

Companies seem to be scared of producing new work, and when they do, there is often a sense that they do so out of obligation. In some cases it even feels like the company just wants to satisfy the “new work” requirements of government funding agencies. The financial and human resources a new composition receives are often as little as half as much of what’s thrown at a lavish new Bohème or Traviata. The marketing is often apologetic, with every effort being made to take emphasis off the fact that the new work in question features new music. And it’s not just the companies; many singers don’t like performing new work either. Learning and performing brand new roles simply isn’t considered a necessary part of a singer’s professional life.

It is true that there are some practical impediments to developing new operas. In particular, the lead-time on a new work is huge – much greater than for a new play or a new orchestral work. For a traditional opera, a libretto has to be written, workshopped, revised. Music has to be composed, workshopped and revised (three hours of music could easily consume five years of a composer’s life). Each singer has to be coached individually for many hours to learn new roles. The director and stage team need to work with the composer and librettist to devise a way of staging the work. The company and the creative team then work together to realise the concept through many weeks of rehearsals.

But this is no excuse for a company dodging putting on new operas. It is the moral duty of major companies to produce new works of substance and quality, and to produce them with regularity, with a whole heart, and to the highest standard. New work ought to be regarded as the pinnacle of the whole season. Not a secondary niche endeavour, but a prized high point.

Some say that the risk of programming an unfamiliar, potentially challenging, work is too great. Audiences will be suspicious and a box office disaster will ensue. But this is a copout. To say that there is something inherent in new opera that people don’t or won’t like is wrong. The reason new operas are viewed with suspicion by audiences is because they are programmed so infrequently, and when they are, they are often executed badly and then swept under the carpet.

Companies need to be proactive to overcome this problem. If our companies fail to produce new operas, audiences won’t know what’s beyond the standard repertoire, and will continue to be sceptical of new work. The financial risk ought to be built into companies’ planning and should not deter them from their artistic duty of creating new work.

All this said, I am optimistic. Leadership in the Australian opera industry at present is particularly forward-looking. In the last few years there have been new appointments to all five major artistic director positions. Two of them – Opera Australia’s Lyndon Terracini and Opera Queensland’s Lindy Hume – have come to their jobs with experience running festivals and commissioning new work, and one – Richard Mills of the Victorian Opera – is a notable opera composer himself. And with smaller companies like Chamber Made Opera and Sydney Chamber Opera continuing to place new work as a high priority, one would hope that the next decade in Australian opera will be an exciting one.