Key Facts:
State Opera South Australia calls on South Australians to submit the stories that define this state, your community or your family, with the chance to see them transformed into a fully staged professional opera in 2027
9 June 2026: State Opera South Australia has launched the first phase of a world-first initiative, Our Opera, Our Story, transforming real stories from everyday South Australians into four original, professionally staged operas for the 2027 season.
Artistic Director Dane Lam said the project represents a fundamental shift in how opera is made, and who it belongs to.
“Opera has always been built on the stories that matter most like; love, loss, betrayal, revenge, resilience and humour. These human universals are the reasons why operas from hundreds of years ago still capture people’s imaginations today. But we equally believe that opera is the supreme vehicle for storytelling in all its guises, and it must also reflect today’s world, and the people living in it, as we look to the future.”
Opera is, by definition, for everyone, but this is a completely new way of collecting stories for the mainstage. Where companies generally choose what stories are told and whose voices are heard, Our Opera, Our Story flips that entirely. South Australians come first. Their stories are the foundation.
“Our Opera, Our Story gives South Australians a direct hand in shaping new work at the highest professional level. We are not asking people to contribute to a “small arts” project. We want their stories that matter, or how a moment in time shaped our state forever,” Lam said.
Among the stories that could define this project: the 2020 bushfires through the eyes of someone who lived it; an Adelaide Crows supporter recalling the back-to-back 1997-98 premierships and what it meant to the whole state; an Italian family whose post-WW2 migration story of hardship and resilience is now woven into the contemporary fabric of South Australia.
Nick Ryan, better known in Australia as one of the country’s premier food and wine writers, is also one of Port Adelaide’s biggest fans. He recalls watching his beloved team’s AFL dreams get publicly shredded in 1990. A secret deal leaked, condemned as treachery and killed by legal action, while the Crows were handed what Port had fought for. He waited seven years for the moment Port finally ran onto an AFL ground. From that young, gutted Port supporter to one of the club’s most passionate fans today, Nick wants to see that story on stage – the grit, the politics, the heartbreak and what it built in the people who never stopped believing.
“This is not just a football story — it is a South Australian story about what it means to fight for something, to be denied, and to never let go of what you believe in. Port Adelaide fans carried that story with them for seven years, and we still carry it today. If opera can capture that — the passion, the politics, the heartbreak and the eventual triumph — then it absolutely deserves to be on that stage,” he said.
From footy to outback, Ross Fargher grew up on the land as a fourth-generation Flinders Ranges cattleman. In 1985, a visiting friend noticed strange wave-like ripple marks on the sandstone slabs of the woolshed floor at his family’s Nilpena Station and pointed them out to Ross. He remembered seeing the same patterns on a rocky hillside while mustering cattle. They drove out, flipped a few loose slabs of red sandstone — and found themselves looking at the dawn of animal life on Earth. The fossils preserved beneath his boots were 550 million years old: entire intact marine ecosystems, the world’s earliest complex soft-bodied creatures, buried mid-movement by a prehistoric sandstorm. Six years later, Ross and his wife Jane bought their local pub, the Prairie Hotel in Parachilna, and spent three decades running a remote outback watering hole, working a cattle station, and quietly guarding one of the most significant palaeontological sites ever discovered. He let the world’s scientists in — NASA researchers, international palaeontologists, Sir David Attenborough — but on one condition: nothing left the land. Researchers eventually named three newly identified Ediacaran organisms after the people who protected them: Nilpenia rossi for Ross, Attenborites janeae for Jane, and Pambikalbae hasenohrae for the friend who first spotted the woolshed floor. The family ultimately negotiated the sale of two-thirds of Nilpena Station to the South Australian Government, creating the Nilpena Ediacara National Park. Today, Ross still guides travellers from the Prairie Hotel bar out to the fossil beds — and believes that story belongs on stage.
“It’s not just my story — it’s the land’s story. If someone can put that on a stage and help people feel what it’s like to stand out there in the red dirt and realise you’re touching the beginning of life itself, that’s worth doing.”
Anna Liptak Executive Producer of I’m Not A Runner, founder of Adventure Time Travel and one of Australia’s most recognised community running advocates, has also shared her story for Our Opera, Our Story consideration.
Her journey began twenty years ago, when she had just started running again after the birth of her son, when a car of hoons drove past and hurled body-shaming abuse at her. She kept running. That moment sparked two decades of building a community of everyday South Australians who came to her saying “I’m not a runner” — and left crossing marathon finish lines. In 2017, determined their stories deserved to be shared with the world, she did what she always told her clients: just start. Four years later she premiered the award-winning documentary called I’m Not A Runner, which followed five women starting from scratch through to running across the finish line at the New York Marathon. Fast forward to today, the documentary has screened in more than 50 countries, played to passengers on British Airways, Qatar Airways and Aer Lingus, and is now shown to runners at start lines of major marathons around the world.
“Their stories of grief, self-doubt, courage, vulnerability, bodies that had lived and felt broken, lives that hadn’t gone to plan. There was something so powerful in watching people find themselves through movement, a sense of belonging they hadn’t expected, an identity they’d never imagined claiming. I found these stories so powerful, and I knew they needed to be shared. I hope they have a life on stage also as people’s stories are inspiring,” said Anna.
South Australian Minister for Arts Kyam Maher said the project reinforces South Australia’s national leadership in the arts.
“This is a genuinely bold approach to creating new art, one that places South Australians at the heart of the creative process. It reinforces this state’s position as a national leader in the arts while backing our community, our storytellers and our artists to shape the opera of the future,” Minister Kyam said.
Stories can be submitted in written, audio or video form, across any category like; sport, food and wine, immigration, community, politics, Indigenous stories, or open, and no arts background is required, just a great ‘yarn’ that needs to be shared.
Submissions close 19 June 2026 at stateopera.com.au/our-opera-our-story. It’s not a lengthy process. Shortlisted stories go to public vote from 24 June to 1 July, with four selected to be developed into 20-minute micro-operas by leading Australian composer-librettist teams, performed alongside the Adelaide Symphony Orchestra as part of the 2027 season at Elder Hall. Those selected receive full creative credit, VIP opening night access, behind-the-scenes access throughout the creative journey, invitations to the 2026 season, and so much more.
“If SA loves it. If we love it. Your story could be immortalised forever. I hope you embrace this opportunity and share your story today,” said Lam.
