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Caitlin Vincent will be in conversation with Helen Musa on her new book Opera Wars. Inside the World of Opera and the Battles for its Future, which received extensive media coverage in the United States and UK on publication earlier this year.

Blunt, irreverent, and at times wittily subversive, Opera Wars spotlights opera’s colourful and sometimes warring personalities, increasingly fierce controversies over content, and the battles being waged for its economic future.

Drawing on interviews with dozens of opera insiders—as well as her own experience as an award-winning librettist, trained vocalist, opera company director, and arts commentator—Caitlin Vincent deftly unravels clichés and presumptions, exposing such debates as how much fidelity is owed to long-dead opera composers whose plots often stir racial and gender sensitivities, whether there’s any cure for typecasting that leaves talented performers out of work and other performers chained to the same roles, and what explains the bizarre kowtowing of opera companies to the demands of traditionalist patrons.

Vincent never shrinks from depicting the industry’s top-to-bottom messiness and its stubborn resistance to change. Yet, like a lover who can’t quite break away, she always comes back to her veneration for the artform and in these pages stirringly evokes those moments on stage that can be counted on to make ardent fans of the most skeptical.

Dr Caitlin Vincent is an award-winning librettist, trained vocalist, opera company director, academic and arts commentator. Her librettos have won all three of America’s top opera prizes and her vocal work is featured on the Grammy Award–nominated album 40@40. Vincent was the artistic director of The Figaro Project from 2009 to 2014. She writes frequently on the arts for The Conversation and Limelight.  She holds a PhD from Deakin University, an MM from Peabody Conservatory at Johns Hopkins, a BA from Harvard and is currently an ARC DECRA Fellow and Senior Lecturer in Creative Industries in the School of Culture and Communication at Melbourne University.

“A delightful introduction to the workings of one of the world’s most exciting and polarizing art forms. From opera’s birth pangs more than four centuries ago to the economic, logistical, and cultural challenges it faces today, Opera Wars is a colourful, witty look behind the velvet curtain.” Renée Fleming,

Opera devotee,Helen Musa OAM is the arts editor of Canberra Citynews and founder and convener of the Canberra Critics’ Circle. In 2015, Helen received an Order of Australia Medal for her service to the performing and visual arts as a critic and magazine editor.

Professor Mathew Trinca Talalin AM FAHA is Chair of the Cultural Facilities Corporation in Canberra

Books will be available for signing from 5.30pm and again after the event.

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A podcast will be made available after the event.

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