Deborah Cheetham Fraillon AO

Soprano, Composer, Artistic Director

In this episode of Three Food Memories we’re graced with a voice that is nothing short of sublime - it is as beautiful as it is haunting, and resonant with the echoes of a thousand ancestral stories.

Deborah Cheetham Fraillon AO, is a luminous star in the constellation of classical music — an opera singer, composer, artistic director, and professor. Music runs in the family, she’s the niece of music legend Jimmy Little and her grandfather was a talented gum leaf player, who performed at the opening of the Sydney Harbour Bridge.

Hear Deborah’s musings on the restorative benefits of chicken soup, how seeing Dame Joan Sutherland perform in The Merry Widow as a school kid completely changed her life, what it was like to connect with her Aboriginal heritage and the joy of finding her biological family, competitive Christmas trifle making, and how Bar Italia in Leichardt may receive an operetta in it’s name one day soon. 

Deborah’s social cause is truth telling - she believes it’s the foundation of any society that’s going to remain cohesive. She says “the truth makes us stronger, even if it causes us pain in the moment of knowing”.

She pays forward a steak with red wine jus, asparagus and creamy mash to our next guest Chris Bath. 

For more information on Short Black Opera Company and Dhungala Children’s Choir head to shortblackopera.org.au.