Deborah Cheetham Fraillon is a modern opera woman, saving the artform from itself

Deborah Cheetham Fraillon holds the most-senior position at the Sydney Conservatorium of Music for a First Nations person in the history of the prestigious institution, as the inaugural Elizabeth Todd Chair of Vocal Studies. (Supplied: Stefanie Zingsheim/University of Sydney)

If Deborah Cheetham Fraillon is a diva, it's in her uncompromising insistence that opera includes everyone: telling stories that matter to contemporary audiences.

Not that the celebrated Australian soprano is giving up on Mozart, Puccini or Wagner.