Australian Ballet Orchestra's lightning conductor, Nicolette Fraillon IT'S a sultry summer evening and the slim, whippety figure of Nicolette Fraillon is silhouetted in the dark belly of the Sydney Opera House's orchestra pit. Dressed in her trademark glittering black, sinewy arms bare, her bright cropped gold head bobs like a beacon in the gloom as the musicians of the Australian Opera and Ballet Orchestra take their places. The rustles and coughs die down, silence creeps in a slow wave over the full house, then Fraillon lifts her baton to usher in the plaintive chords of the overture to Tchaikovsky's score for Swan Lake.