For anyone growing up in the eighties and nineties, the ABC television and radio simulcast was a mainstay of Australian cultural life, regularly beaming performances by our national companies into our homes. Coupled with free concerts in Sydney’s Domain – no one could forget the very first Opera in the Park in 1982, with Dame Joan Sutherland starring in La Traviata, or the Les Misérables Australia Day Concert in 1989 – it was must-see TV, and on 2 October 1990, as Sutherland gave her farewell performance in Les Huguenots, there wasn’t a car on the road, or a dry eye in the house.

Grant Dodwell. Photo supplied

Forty years after La Stupenda first graced the outdoor stage in the Domain, regular free-to-air arts are a thing of the past. Thankfully, digital streaming platforms have filled that gap, bolstered by a demand that grew exponentially during the recent COVID lockdowns. As theatre and music lovers went online in search of spiritual uplift, opera houses, ballet companies and concert halls around the world obliged with an embarrassment of riches. Some required viewers to pay per view, but most were happy just to be...