So Opera Australia is in quest of a new artistic director to replace Lyndon Terracini. It’s a good moment to reflect on what made the man who’s going such an asset. I remember hearing the story a long time ago that in the days when Lyndon ran the Brisbane Festival he came within a whisker of getting Valery Gergiev – the great conductor of the Kirov opera – a man at home with Wagner, at home with the Russian repertoire, at home with everything – to do his Ring Cycle in Queensland.