Hickox is the English conductor to whom Opera Australia turned after sacking the acclaimed Simone Young six years ago. Restricted to a maximum six months in Australia for tax reasons, he has left a trail of disgruntlement, including accusations of bullying, favouritism and, in his wife's case, nepotism. Janes was first to make her displeasure known, writing to the board in April. By then, some singers had already seen the writing on the wall. Jeffrey Black, a principal artist at Opera Australia since 1984, expressed reservations about Hickox's inexperience in Australia at the time of his appointment. For so doing, Black believes he was penalised: "It was made clear to me that while this management were in place I would never again work with Opera Australia." He is now based in Portugal, feeling "basically ostracised from my own country". A particular criticism is that Opera Australia under Hickox has scorned older singers, especially women with powerful voices. Like Black, the outstanding soprano Maria Pollicina, praised recently by The Guardian for her "fearsomely powerful and laser-projected voice", now bases herself in Europe, resigned to homesickness: "There is no feeling on earth, for me, that can compare with performing before Australian audiences At this juncture, I hope for the best." Nor is it only performers who feel marginalised. Nicholas Milton, former concertmaster of the Adelaide Symphony Orchestra, has been chief conductor of the 96-piece Jena Philharmonic for the past four years. Naturally keen to conduct in his homeland, he was advised to make an appointment with Hickox  to no avail. "Since he began working for the company, I have written letters, sent emails, and made probably 20 or 30 phone calls, all to no avail," says Milton. "I have begged to simply attend an orchestra rehearsal, always unsuccessfully I have the impression that I would have more success organising a meeting with George Bush." Perhaps the most distinguished figure to have spoken out is Richard Divall: still "Mr Opera" for the many in Melbourne who recall his 24-year music directorship at the Victoria State Opera. Three times his agent Jenifer Eddy requested meetings with Hickox via Collette. Collette denied receiving any messages, although, Divall insists, email receipts indicated otherwise. At the news that Janes had spoken out, he wrote his own impassioned rebuke to Opera Australia chairman Gordon Fell: "You must be aware, the morale of the company is widely commented on in being at a very low ebb, and the work environment is one where artists are afraid to speak out for fear of their career To put it plainly, many very talented Australians have been ignored by the company management and treated with what might be best called 'disdain'."

Divall also identified an issue underlying the affair: "The crux of the problem is that there is no real alternative to operatic employment in this country, and the industry that is supported from federal funds devolves onto one company alone, a monopoly situation that has had grievous repercussions for artists living especially out of Sydney." For in a sense, Hickox and Collette have a power they did not seek. Rather they were ceded it when, 12 years ago, the Australian Opera swallowed the Victoria State Opera, its biggest competitor, in a "merger" that totally belied the term. The Victoria State Opera was at the time in financial disarray, despite being artistically outstanding. It had lost the faith of premier Jeff Kennett, and attracted the predatory interest of Australian Opera chairman Graeme Samuel. The result was a "rationalisation" that appealed to business and government, but to absolutely nobody else: not even the Australian Opera's general manager, Donald McDonald, was enthused. But when artistic director Moffatt Oxenbould expressed doubts about a paper outlining the merger, he found Samuel intransigent.

He wrote in his memoirs: "He became blunt and angry when I pointed out that while I had only had time for a cursory reading of the paper, I had serious doubts in my mind about the detail of what was being proposed. "I asked if there was time for me to give a considered response to the paper, but was told in no uncertain terms that if I cared about the company and opera in Australia, I should not even think about voicing any objections without realising that dire consequences would follow for my career." Detractors would now say that Opera Australia, born in an atmosphere of intimidation, had simply carried on the same way. It is fairer to comment that it acquired powers of a monopoly  in retrospect, an ironic endeavour for Graeme Samuel, latter-day crusader for competition and scourge of cartels. Monopolies can be stable; they can be lucrative; but they are seldom liked, and almost always court resentment. That became apparent first in Melbourne. In 1995, attendances at Australian Opera and Victoria State Opera performances in Melbourne totalled 132,000; by 2002, Opera Australia's Melbourne numbers had dwindled to fewer than 70,000. Opera Australia explained that the $700,000 subsidy paid by the Victorian Government was too small; opera-goers complained that Opera Australia seldom sent its first-choice cast, and scaled its productions down.

Two smaller companies took advantage of the disaffection: Melbourne City Opera, which originated in the semi-professional Globe Opera Company founded 30 years ago by Brighton singing teacher Joe Talia; and a spin-off from it, Melbourne Opera, founded by conductor and impresario Greg Hocking. 'The closure of the Victoria State Opera remains a tragic event in the history of the arts in Victoria," says Talia. "Opera here has never recovered. If Opera Australia were honest, they would admit that their Melbourne performances are very much their second string. In fact, it is ridiculous that a city of 4 million like Melbourne can be served for opera by another city." Hocking doesn't see his company as a competitor to Opera Australia; rather as an alternative. "We exist to support Victorian singers, to give fresh talent the 'match practice' it needs," he says. "Opera isn't just like Andy Hardy. You can't just 'put on a show'. When Opera Australia was created, it meant that if you were out of favour with a single person in Sydney, then your career was stuffed." The newcomers attracted serious support. Talia had former Victoria State Opera chairman Sir Rupert Hamer as patron, then former Labor finance minister Ralph Willis as chairman. Hocking mustered Potter and Dame Elisabeth Murdoch as patrons-in-chief, while his patrons included Dame Joan Sutherland, Richard Bonynge and Sir Zelman Cowen. And it was against this backdrop  very different to the circumstances at the time the will was made  that the estate of 95-year-old Melva Thompson, became subject to dispute. Thompson had left a bequest of $1.73 million to the former Victoria State Opera, but by the time of her death in 2002 the Victoria State Opera no longer existed. The ensuing legal battle between Opera Australia, Melbourne City Opera and Melbourne Opera proceeded to devour the lion's share of the bequest. Henry Kissinger once observed that disputes in academe are so vicious because the stakes are so small. Something similar applies in Australian opera.

In public finance terms, the sums of money are paltry; given that the New York Metropolitan raises more than $US100 million ($A144 million) from private philanthropy annually, they seem tiny by global standards too. Over this $1.73 million, though, there raged a more-Victorian-than-thou furore, which soon ran out of the executors' control. The dispute also betrays an ambivalence at Opera Australia about the power it enjoys. Collette has publicly stated his preparedness to support other companies in Victoria: "I cannot understand why one opera company would try to promote its own interests at the expense of another." Yet he discountenanced settlement at every step. And while it has an unsought monopoly, Opera Australia sometimes exudes a sense of savouring it. Uncertainty was exacerbated in October 2004 when Arts Victoria director Penny Hutchinson circulated interested parties, including those contesting the Thompson bequest, advising that LEK Consulting had been commissioned to develop "operational models to ensure delivery of a diversity of professional opera expenses on a sustainable basis"  a buzzword-laden response to complaints by and about Opera Australia in Melbourne. LEK's job was not to make a recommendation. It was simply to prepare options in consultation with three advisers: admired singing teacher Merlyn Quaife, Musica Viva's grey eminence Peter Burch and the composer Jonathan Mills, now director of the Edinburgh Festival. It was the gifted and charming Mills, sometimes referred to as the government's "arts adviser", who proved chiefly influential, and the idea took root of a new company to make up some of the loss constituted by the Victoria State Opera.

Melbourne Opera and Melbourne City Opera discussed joining forces, and Potter took to premier Steve Bracks and Hutchinson the idea of basing a new force around this "one strong company", which the parties foreshadowed as VicOpera in December 2004. However, the sensations of eight years earlier recurred: even unconsummated opera mergers do not run smooth. And when clashing personalities at Melbourne Opera and Melbourne City Opera cancelled their combination in May 2005, arts minister Mary Delahunty instead gifted the state a new taxpayer-funded "boutique" company, Victorian Opera, with Richard Gill as its music director. Although it was Delahunty's portfolio, Victorian Opera is viewed chiefly as the brainchild of Terry Moran, the senior mandarin of Bracks and Premier John Brumby who has recently taken a similar role with Prime Minister Kevin Rudd. At the concert to open this year's Victorian Opera season, held just before Moran's departure, Gill and chairman Michael Roux praised their public service patron with embarrassing effusiveness. "Mary Delahunty wasn't mentioned at all, even though it had been in her watch that the company was created," recalls one guest. "It was sickening, really  and the reason it was sickening was that the occasion was simply so all these businessmen could suck up to Moran, then the most powerful public servant in Victoria, about to become the most powerful public servant in Australia."

Yet it might fairly be asked quite what credit there is to be taken. Opera Victoria, for example, was allowed virtually no set-up time, and compelled by government to perform four operas in its first season. "It was an absurd and wicked requirement," says a senior arts administrator. "They suffered it, and did it, at appalling cost to themselves. But it revealed just how little any of the government people understood about what they were doing." Opera Victoria survives thanks to a higher per-seat subsidy than the Victoria State Opera: last year, it generated only $600,000 of its $3.75 million revenues through box office, and its main stage attendances fell below 10,000. Brumby's secretary Helen Silver is reportedly reviewing the state of opera in Melbourne again. Her field work included the last night of Melbourne Opera's I Puritani on Monday  at which she arrived hot-foot from the shock resignation of industry minister Theo Theophanous. Loading

As well she might: that little Carmen accident finally does seem symbolic, in so far as it was policymakers who left the mess that the opera administrators proceeded to step in. Gideon Haigh is a Melbourne writer.