Artistic Director
Peter Coleman-Wright AO
Peter Coleman-Wright AO has enjoyed a long and highly successful career. He has sung over 75 roles all over the world, including Don Giovanni, Il Conte, Gulgilemo, Don Alfonso, Papageno, Macbeth, Posa, Germont, Michele, Ping, Sharpless, Marcello, Scarpia, Donner, Gunther, Beckmesser, Wolfram, Pizzaro, Figaro, Dandini, Don Alvaro, Billy Budd, Balstrode, Owen Wingrove, Demetrius, Sid, and The Traveller among many others.
Peter has had long associations with the Royal Opera Covent Garden, English National Opera, Welsh National, Glyndebourne Festival and Touring, La Monnaie, Bastille, Munich, La Scala, La Fenice, Warsaw, Geneva, Aix-en Provence, Netherlands, Bordeaux , Kammer Oper- Wien and Opera Australia.
In America Peter has performed at the Metropolitan Opera New York ( Falke, Fieramosca, Belcore, Marcello), New York City (Don Giovanni), Houston Grand Opera (Sharpless, Posa, End of the Affair), Santa Fe (Sharpless). He sang Caligula in Buenos Aires, Argentina in 2016.
In addition Peter has championed new and 20th Century works including operas by Henze (Prinz vom Homburg), Dallapiccola ( Il Prigioniero), Jonathan Harvey ( Inquest of Love), David Blake (The Plumbers Gift), Detlev Glanert (Caligula), Jake Heggie (End of the Affair) and Brett Dean (Bliss).
Peter has had a substantial career in the world of song and concert repertoire and has performed in in the great halls of the world including Wigmore, Chatelet, Aix en Provence, London South Bank, Bridgewater Hall, Madrid, Paris Garnier, Paris Radio France, Aldeburgh, Amsteram Concertgebouw, Iceland, Finland, San Paulo, Brazil and Moscow, alongside pianists like Julius Drake, Graham Johnson, Piers Lane and Malcolm Martineau.
He has sung with many notable conductors such as John Adams, Sir Colin Davis, Gustavo Dudamel, Sir Mark Elder, Daniele Gatti, Richard Hickox, Elgar Howarth, James Levine, Sir Antony Pappano, Sir Simon Rattle, Carlo Rizzi, Gennady Rozhdestvensky Edo de Waart, Mark Wigglesworth and Simone Young.
Peter has recorded extensively for EMI, Telarc, Virgin Classics, Hyperion, LSO and ABC Classics.
He was awarded an Honorary Doctorate from the University of Melbourne and an Order of Australia AO for his services to Music in 2015.
Photo credit Keith Saunders 2021
Our Strategic Plan
Our Vision
National Opera in Canberra will be recognised nationally for staging innovative, well attended and accessible performances, featuring world-class and emerging local talent.
Our Mission
National Opera in Canberra
will produce exceptional, exciting performance programs to diverse audiences, focusing on
industry and business partnerships, and the transformative power of the opera artform.
Our Values
Professional | Collaborative | Inclusive | Sustainable
Our Key Goals For The Next Four Years
Our Artistic Program will comprise of exceptional productions, programs and events featuring local and world-class performers in a variety of creative formats.
Our Artistic Program will provide opportunities for participation, development and advancement for emerging, local performers through classes, online resources and audition opportunities.
Our Company will increase our reach through creative and collaborative marketing campaigns and targeted diverse audience development strategies.
Our Company will explore and pursue a variety of revenue and funding opportunities, including government funding, philanthropic donors, sponsorship, patron ticketing, shared resources and business partnerships.
Our Company will assess our policies, procedures and processes annually to ensure they incorporate best practice arts management principles, prioritise the safety of our artists and audiences, and include reflection on recent outcomes and new opportunities or risks.
Our Logo
Our logo has been designed to represent both our national and local interests for National Opera.
We acknowledge and recognise the First Peoples of Australia and in particular the land on which we operate, that of the Ngunnuawal People.
The name Canberra comes from an Aboriginal word Kamberra meaning meeting place.
Therefore our logo brings together these concepts as well as balancing our intent to contribute to enhancing the reputation of Canberra as the national capital of Australia.
We acknowledge and recognise the First Peoples of Australia and in particular the land on which we operate, that of the Ngunnuawal People.
The name Canberra comes from an Aboriginal word Kamberra meaning meeting place.
Therefore our logo brings together these concepts as well as balancing our intent to contribute to enhancing the reputation of Canberra as the national capital of Australia.
Our Committee
We are both a registered charity under the Australian Charities and Not-for-Profit Commission and a nationally incorporated association.
None of this would be possible without the tireless efforts of our Committee.
Executive Members
President: Erika Tolano
Vice President: Elisha Holley
Treasurer: Kathryn Savery
Secretary: Jacqueline de Chazal
General Members
Ben Craig, and Sitiveni Talei
The Committee is supported by our General Manager Stephanie McAlister
For further information, contact info@nationalopera.org.au or call 1300 965 535