Posted by the Fatal Compact Preservation Committee on 26th August 2022
In 1955 Eugene Goossens, the director of the New South Wales State Conservatorium of Music, commissioned a piece to open the new Sydney Opera House. He chose Banjo McKenzie to write the music and Red Greengrass, the poetic voice of the outback, to provide the libretto. The opera was to match the thrilling new forms of the projected opera house and to show the world that Australian culture had struck off its colonial shackles. The result was The Fatal Compact. Unfortunately, by the time the opera was finished in 1957 the Opera House was still on the drawing board and the first performance was given at Sydney Town Hall, which we think is in part due to the fact that the great opera was never shown at the Sydney Opera House, as planned. For more information please refer to the chapter entitled ‘The Fatal Compact’ in Peter Kent’s forthcoming serious non-fiction (and not at all parody, no, quite serious and true) collection Opera Obscura.
Help us to petition Sydney Opera House to finally do the opera justice by staging it.
This petition will be delivered once it reaches 1,000 signatures.
We the undersigned
Hermione Cuthbert – Secretary of the Fatal Compact Preservation Committee
Reginald Cuthbert – Membership Secretary of the Fatal Compact Preservation Committee
Felicity Adams
John Daniels
Lionel Wade
Mary Smith
John Smith
Walter Thomas
Adam Evans
Ron Tomlinson
Jessica Tadworth
Ann Parks
Ned Kelly
Laura McDonald
James Davis
Ella Fitzgerald
Tom Southey
Ben Clarke
Trevor Amis
Len Cousins
Ian Doors
David McAria
Sarah Parker
Tim McEwan
Debbie Armstrong