I was thinking about this yesterday in the car. And seeing that Cam laid out a series of Melbourne capital claims in another thread I thought this needed discussion.

What city would be the cultural capital of Australia?

Immeadiately the obvious shortlist for me is Sydney, Adelaide and Melbourne.

If it were judged per-capita I think it'd be hard to go past Adelaide, if it were based on High Culture I'd suggest it would go to Sydney and for television Melbourne probably has the edge.

Overall, I lean towards Sydney but I need to think about this a bit more.

I think take out Adelaide.

High culture - Melbourne
Pop culture - Sydney
3rd rate wannabe American "culture" - Brisbane (and most of Queensland)
Best Arts Festival - Adelaide.

Mandurah

ROFL, but its probably one the cultural capitals of Western Australia...HMS Pinafore seems to be on at the moment... http://www.manpac.com.au/

It has a wide variety of exhibitions, concerts, musicals, play...

I'd say Sydney though...

I hate to be a sourpuss, but I've got to say it sounds like that production stinks.

I'm sure sandy will agree with me here that any G&S production whose publicity material includes this line will frankly be shithouse:





What kind of dickhead thinks "G&S is amongst the best loved pieces of Victorian culture, let's update it to refer to a late 20th century Italian pop-tenor".

What a f***ing

Sandyhill is on the money.

By coincidence I was just looking at the 2006 Fringe Guide, and came across this:

I was going to say Wellington, but on the evidence it's really hard to go past Mandurah.

Its all relative - I'm sure its as good as it gets for the Mandurah 'elite'. What's muck to us can be top shelf for them.

Mandurah

Is Aboriginal culture a consideration in this thread?

Raises an interesting line of argument...

All I have to say is that one of Australia's greatest outdoor museums has basically been destroyed because of the Burrup Peninsula expansion...shows how much the nation really thinks about Aboriginal Culture...

mmm... acidophilus......


As for the topic at hand, Melbourne is by a country mile the most cultured city... Sydney and Adelaide a close second, with the rest not even close... Adelaide is only where it is because of it's bi-annual arts festivals, without those, we'd be behind Geelong in cultural status!

Oh, I don't know about that. You guys have a pretty good opera company. Did the first ever Australian production of the Ring Cycle last year. Very impressive.

Melbourne doesn't have an opera company. Sydeny lends Melbourne its company for 4 months of the year.

Good fishing, Cheesie. I'll take the bait to set the record straight, being in the undisputed (Cheesie excepted) opera capital of Australia, where we are spoilt in the range, choice and quality of our opera.
First - Opera Australia is an amalgamation of the (former) Victorian State Opera and Australian Opera Company, and as such is shared between the two big cities.

Second - Apart from Opera Australia, Melbourne also has the following opera companies - Chamber Made Opera, More than Opera, Opera Alive, Melbourne City Opera, Melbourne Lyric Opera, Melbourne Opera Company and OzOpera.

Of these, Melbourne City Opera and Melbourne Opera Company are large enough to put on quality productions - last year I enjoyed the latter's production of Bizet's Carmen.