In Andrew Lloyd Webber’s Phantom of the Opera, it is the temperamental prima donna Carlotta who flounces off the stage in a fit of pique after nearly being hit by a falling backdrop.

At Opera Australia, the nation’s premier company and one of its most important cultural institutions, it is the billionaire sponsor who has walked out in a huff. And Phantom, along with other musicals that have made their name on the West End and Broadway, is being blamed.

Haruhisa Handa had long dreamt of bringing opera to a wider Australian audience and, for the past 15 years, has been the patron-in-chief of Opera Australia. However, taking his annual sponsorship of more than A$1 million (£524,000) with him, Handa has backed a rival festival set up by Lyndon Terracini, Opera Australia’s former artistic director.

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