ABSTRACT
This chapter presents an interview conducted by Pamela Karantonis with Deborah Cheetham. Some might say that opera is a dying art which needs to recruit new audiences, particularly in a multicultural place like Australia. In Pecan Summer, the entire opera begins with a prelude that is a creation story from the Yorta Yorta mythology, for Cheetham, putting that right at the beginning, at the very first instance of the opera. The spirituality of the work is firmly rooted in the Yorta Yorta tradition and the opera grows from there. Some European theater scholars have said that Aboriginal writings for the stage appear to be preoccupied with 'the past as present', in ways that seem supernatural in the Western sense. Karantonis asked Cheetham what he thinks the difference between creative work that is tokenistic as against work that is inclusive and, giving a fair voice to Indigenous artists and the stories they need to tell, even if they are unpopular.
