CONDUCTOR Richard Mills is apparently unstoppable: in 2013 he will take over artistic leadership of Melbourne's Victorian Opera as well as conduct for the first time the most demanding work in the repertoire, Wagner's four-part Ring cycle.
Mills was yesterday named artistic director of Victorian Opera, succeeding Richard Gill, who founded the company in 2005.
"The Victorian Opera's commitment to new Australian work will continue, and I have a long record of commissioning new work," Mills said yesterday. "It's one thing I am passionate about."
He will step down from WA Opera, where he has been artistic director since 1997, at the end of next year.
The Melbourne appointment follows an acrimonious episode in Perth in which Mills sacked his head of music at WA Opera.
Brisbane-born pianist and voice coach Scott Curry, who returned to Australia from Germany to take up the post, claims he was unfairly dismissed three months into his probationary period. "There was no problem from management," Curry told The Weekend Australian. "It's all the work of one person (Mills)."cycle, which Mills is due to conduct in a $16 million production for Opera Australia.
"I know this Wagner and Strauss thing inside out," Curry said this week, ahead of his planned return to Berlin on Monday.
