Every few months, someone writes an op-ed about how young people don’t appreciate the arts anymore, and every few months, I want to throw my laptop out the window. Young people are fine. The problem isn’t them. The problem is that we’ve systematically stripped arts education from schools and then act surprised when kids don’t grow up buying opera tickets.

I’m going to make the case for putting opera — real opera, not a watered-down version — into Australian schools. And I’m going to argue it’s not elitist. It’s actually one of the most democratic things we could do.

What opera teaches that nothing else does

Opera is the original multimedia art form. It combines music, drama, visual design, literature, movement, and language — often in a language the audience doesn’t speak. To create an opera, you need singers, instrumentalists, directors, designers, stage managers, lighting technicians, and a whole lot of people who know how to collaborate under pressure.

Sound like good skills for young people to develop? It should, because that’s basically the wish list from every employer survey I’ve ever read.

When a class of Year 8 students puts together even a simplified scene from The Magic Flute, they’re learning to work as a team, interpret a text, express emotion through voice and body, manage stage fright, solve logistical problems, and experience the terrifying joy of live performance. That’s not a luxury. That’s education.

The programs that work

Australia already has some excellent opera-in-schools programs, and they deserve more attention and funding.

Opera Australia’s Schools program brings touring productions into schools across NSW and has been running for decades. Their productions are designed for young audiences — they’re shorter, they’re in English, and they’re performed with an energy that holds attention. I’ve watched rooms of skeptical teenagers get completely absorbed. It works.

Victorian Opera has been particularly innovative, creating original works specifically for school-age audiences and involving students in the creative process. Their 2024 production that was co-written with primary school students was one of the most joyful things I’ve seen on a stage in years.

The challenge is scale. These programs reach thousands of students, but there are millions. And they’re concentrated in capital cities, which means kids in regional and remote areas — the ones who might benefit most from exposure to an art form they’d never otherwise encounter — miss out entirely.

The funding reality

Let’s talk money, because that’s always where this conversation stalls.

Arts education funding in Australian schools has been declining in real terms for years. The Australian Curriculum includes the arts as a learning area, but implementation varies wildly between states and individual schools. A well-resourced private school in Sydney’s eastern suburbs might have a dedicated performing arts department with professional-standard facilities. A public school in outer suburbia might have a music teacher who covers three schools and a drama program that exists on paper only.

This inequality is the real elitism. Not opera itself — opera is just stories set to music — but the uneven access to experiencing it. When we say “opera is elitist,” what we often mean is “only privileged kids get to encounter opera.” That’s a funding problem, not an art form problem.

What the research says

There’s solid evidence that arts-rich education improves outcomes across the board. Students who participate in performing arts programs show stronger literacy development, better social-emotional skills, and higher engagement with school generally. A 2023 study by the Australia Council for the Arts found that schools with robust arts programs reported lower absenteeism and better student wellbeing metrics.

Opera specifically offers something that other arts forms don’t always provide: sustained narrative. In an age of 30-second attention spans, asking a young person to follow a two-hour dramatic arc is genuinely valuable. It builds concentration. It rewards patience. It shows that some experiences need time to unfold.

It’s not about creating opera fans

I want to be upfront: the goal isn’t to turn every schoolkid into a lifelong opera subscriber. Some will love it. Some will be indifferent. A few will hate it. That’s fine. The same is true of Shakespeare, and we still teach Shakespeare.

The goal is exposure. It’s showing young people that this art form exists, that it belongs to them as much as anyone, and that they’re allowed to have opinions about it. Every opera lover I know has a story about their first encounter — a school excursion, a parent’s CD collection, a scene in a film. Those seeds need to be planted, and schools are where most of the planting happens.

What needs to change

Three things, concretely:

1. Fund dedicated touring programs that reach regional schools, not just metro ones. Put the money in the budget and make it recurrent, not project-by-project.

2. Support teachers. Most primary school teachers don’t have specialist arts training. Give them resources, professional development, and access to artists who can work alongside them in classrooms.

3. Stop apologising for opera. It’s not stuffy. It’s not irrelevant. It’s human beings telling stories about love, death, jealousy, power, and redemption through the most powerful instrument we have — the human voice. Kids get that instinctively, if we let them.

The stage is set. We just need to open the doors wider.