Adrian Collette’s self-serving claim that matters raised in Gideon Haigh’s article on Opera Australia “lack substance” needs to be refuted. No attempt was made to make a realistic recording of OA’s Rusalka last year. The printed itinerary of the Chandos producer, Ralph Couzens, shows he didn’t bother to attend any of the performances in the theatre, and had no idea of what the audience heard – and he stated as much to me. It seems that he and Richard Hickox were intent on constructing a fantasy right from the start.

This became obvious at the playback session I attended, where Hickox was clearly in charge. I walked out after he ordered Couzens to turn my voice down, and after hearing special effects being applied to make it sound as if I was singing underwater or from a distance. The end result of these manipulations is best described by an eminent professor of music who was in the theatre when the opera was recorded. In his opinion, the voices of Rusalka, Jezibabo and the Wood Nymphs were “given a presence far beyond what they achieved in the theatre”, while my voice was “scaled back significantly and obviously”. The English music critic and author Norman Lebrecht has described the manipulation as “serious” and “shocking”.

While being interviewed by Alan Jones on 15 October, Adrian Collette read out a statement by Ralph Couzens, claiming, “I would stand before any judge in the world to say that the engineers and myself did not and could not interfere in a detrimental way to Bruce Martin’s sound.” Unfortunately for Couzens, if he did make such a claim in court he would probably be charged with perjury, because his claim of “could not interfere” has been contradicted by Richard Hickox himself. In an email sent to me on 7 December 2007, Hickox admits the recording was misrepresentative, that my voice was “backward in the sound picture”; but that because the engineers recorded in “multitrack”, it was possible to rectify this and do a “re-balance”. So much for “live” recording.

Hickox and Chandos had the opportunity to rectify the recording but chose not to, leaving young singers and friends of Hickox – people who would never survive in my Wagnerian repertoire because they don’t have the vocal strength for it – sounding as if they have voices four times more powerful than mine, i.e. 20 decibels louder.

Adrian Collette is fully aware of all the above. He says the company members of OA support him. But would they, if they knew the true extent of the nepotism, cronyism and blatant misrepresentation carried out in the company’s name?

Bruce Martin
Hans Sachs, Wotan, Hagen, Marke, Heinrich and Fasolt for Opera Australia