great, grand & famous opera houses

Great, Grand & Famous

Opera Houses…where art and drama meet

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Great, Grand & Famous

Opera Houses

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… where art and drama meet

With a Foreword by

Dame Kiri Te Kanawa



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Great, Grand & Famous Opera Houses is part of the Great, Grand & Famous book series, an imprint of Arbon Publishing Pty Ltd.

45 Hume Street, Crows Nest NSW 2065, AustraliaPO Box 623, Crows Nest NSW 1585, AustraliaTelephone: +61 2 9437 0438Facsimile: +61 2 9437 0288Email: [email protected] visit www.arbonpublishing.com

Managing Director Fritz Gubler

Publisher Chryl Perry

CHIEF CONSULTANT Moffatt Oxenbould AM

Project Editor Dannielle Viera

Book Design Stan Lamond

Cover Design Stan Lamond

Book Concept Scott Forbes

Design Development Cathy Campbell

Photo Research Sarah Anderson

Proofreader Marie-Louise Taylor

Indexer Marie-Louise Taylor

This publication and arrangement© Arbon Publishing Pty Ltd, 2012Text © Arbon Publishing Pty Ltd, 2012Photography credits appear on page 352

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or any information storage and retrieval systems, without permission in writing from the publisher. All images in this book have been reproduced with the knowledge of and prior consent of the copyright holder concerned, and no responsibility is accepted by authors, publisher, or printer for any infringement of copyright or otherwise, arising from the contents of this publication. Every effort has been made to ensure that credits accurately comply with information supplied.

National Library of Australia Cataloguing-in-Publication entryAuthor: Gubler, Fritz.Title: Great, grand & famous opera houses: where art and

drama meet / Fritz Gubler.ISBN: 9780987282026 Hardcover ISBN: 9780987282019 Paperback Series: Great, grand & famous.Notes: Includes bibliographical references.Subjects: Theaters—History. Music-halls—History.Dewey Number: 725.822

Printed by Toppan Leefung Printing Limited (China)Color separation by Pica Digital Pte Ltd, Singapore

Captions for the Preliminary PagesPage 1: Sculpture at the Teatro La Fenice in Venice.Page 2: Ceiling of Markgräfl iches Opernhaus in Bayreuth.Pages 4–5: The Palau de les Arts Reina Sofía in Valencia.Page 7: Foyer of the Teatro Massimo Bellini, Catania.Page 8: Dame Kiri Te Kanawa in Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart’s

The Marriage of Figaro (1786) at the Royal Opera House, London, in 1971.

Pages 10–11: The Sydney Opera House at dusk.Endpapers: The stage curtain of the Palais Garnier in Paris.


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Moffatt Oxenbould AM has contributed to the development of opera in Australia for more than 45 years, as a stage manager, administrator, director, artistic director, broadcaster, and writer. In retirement he continues to direct operas in Australia and overseas, and he presents radio programs documenting Australia’s operatic heritage. In addition to contributing text for Great, Grand & Famous Opera Houses, Moffatt acted as the book’s Chief Consultant, providing invaluable expert advice both during the development of the book and in reviewing the work in its entirety.

Annarosa Berman is an author and music journalist. She has written on classical music for a wide range of publications and has interviewed local and international musical luminaries across the classical spectrum. Annarosa collaborated with photographer Bridget Elliot on The Company We Keep, a behind-the-scenes look at Opera Australia, which was published by Currency Press in 2006.

Harriet Cunningham is a music writer based in Sydney, Australia. In print she is best known as one of the Sydney Morning Herald’s classical music critics. In a previous life Harriet played the violin and was the administrator of the British Youth Opera.

Murray Dahm is an opera historian from New Zealand. He originally studied ancient history, but was drawn to opera as a performer. Since then he has combined his love of history and opera to publish on various aspects of opera and to educate young people about the art form.

Leona Geeves is a professional researcher in the fi elds of music, architecture, and art. She was 14 when she saw her fi rst opera, and it was love at fi rst sight. Leona’s holidays all involve opera, and her favorite opera composers are Richard Strauss, Benjamin Britten, and Richard Wagner. Her ultimate ambition is to curate a festival of seldom-performed operas.

Deen Hamaker is a passionate opera afi cionado. Introduced to opera and theater at a very young age, he has both acted in and directed several theater productions. Deen has lived in Japan and traveled extensively across Asia, Europe, and the United States. He is fl uent in Japanese and holds a Bachelor of Arts in Japanese from Australia’s Griffi th University.

Melissa Lesnie studied musicology at the Sydney Conservatorium of Music. Her articles have appeared in The Australian newspaper and on the Web site Grove Music Online, and she has written program notes for Opera Australia. She is currently the online editor of Limelight, Australia’s national classical music magazine. A keen singer, Melissa performed with the Sydneian Bach Choir for fi ve years.

Michael Magnusson is a journalist and writer based in Melbourne, Australia. He trained in music, visual arts, and psychotherapy. Michael has worked in opera production and music publishing, and he has been a representative of a number of European and American music publishers. He has written for several Australian and international music industry journals.

Francis Merson is a Russian scholar, music writer, and editor of Limelight magazine, Australia’s classical music monthly. He lived in Moscow for many years, where he trained as an opera singer and developed an enduring interest in Russian opera. He is now based in Sydney, Australia.

Paulo Montoya is an opera writer, lecturer, and emerging stage director. He was born in Costa Rica and now lives in Sydney, Australia. Attending performances at the Sydney Opera House has greatly infl uenced his passion for opera, which started from a young age. Music is the love of his life, and he wouldn’t have it any other way.

Victoria Watson is a coloratura soprano and was an ensemble and principal artist with the Victoria State Opera in Melbourne, Australia. She has run education projects for Opera Australia in Sydney, introducing opera to new audiences, and regularly lectures at festivals, educational institutions, and for special-interest groups.

Ian Watt is a publisher and writer who lives in New Zealand. After completing his university education, he worked for several years in the classical music industry in London, United Kingdom, where he was a keen operagoer and occasional concert reviewer. His publishing career includes a period as editor of the Journal of the Royal Society of Arts.

CONTRIBUTORS









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am proud to say that my career took me into over 20 different opera houses—from Scotland to Australia, Beijing to Buenos Aires, Monte Carlo to Milan, Texas to Venice, and more. But even now the phrase “opera house” is music to my ears. And not just for me—but for all singers

and opera lovers as well.Although they are all dedicated to presenting opera, each of the houses is different—usually

in their splendid design, and often in their memorable setting. My fi rst The Marriage of Figaro was in the Santa Fe Opera (now known as the Crosby Theater)—amid wide open spaces and a level of sunshine not usual for someone who had been living in London.

My debut at the Metropolitan Opera House in New York City was quite different. I was called to take over the role of Desdemona at short notice, but the snow was heavy in the streets and the taxi struggled in the conditions—we nearly didn’t get to the theater on time. Nor had I ever set foot on the Met’s huge stage before that fi rst performance, but fellow singer Jon Vickers was a wonderful guide, even while keeping within the character of Otello. In later times I became very familiar with that stage, and grew to love everything about the Met.

The word “grand” doesn’t come anywhere near describing Palais Garnier in Paris—it is grander than grand. Being there is like stepping into another world. The building is huge and magnifi cently ornate—although the actual auditorium is not as big as the one in the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden. Naturally you keep expecting to see a “phantom” round the corner, but that doesn’t happen. What did happen to me was that when I was taken to the wings for my fi rst entrance, I discovered the celebrated ballet dancer Rudolf Nureyev standing there watching the performance.

The Sydney Opera House is quite the opposite to the Palais Garnier. Indeed, it’s completely unlike any other opera house in the world. No sign of gilding and velvet—instead, steel and tiles and concrete and shiny wood, in a splendid combination of marvelous practicality and imaginative architecture.

Teatro Colón in Buenos Aires is an impressive building—quite daunting at fi rst sight. But Luciano Pavarotti had told me that acoustically it was among the best in the world—and I’m happy to say he was right. It was there in Argentina that I fi rst learned about Latin American art songs—and I have had them in my repertoire ever since.

I’ve loved each and every opera house in which I have performed. I have discovered over the years—and readers of this book will see now—that every opera house has its own character and its own history. For me, it has been an honor to be part of the history of some of them. May they all continue to captivate audiences with the magical music of opera.

Dame Kiri Te Kanawa

I

FOREWORD





Introduction 12

Crucibles of a New Art 18

ITALY: Setting the Standard 20

Teatro alla Scala, Milan 24Arena di Verona, Verona 30Teatro La Fenice, Venice 32Parts of an Opera House 36Teatro Regio di Parma, Parma 38Teatro Comunale di Bologna, Bologna 42Teatro Rossini, Pesaro 44Opera Singers 46Teatro dell’Opera di Roma, Rome 48Teatro di San Carlo, Naples 52Impresarios 58Teatro Massimo, Palermo 60Teatro Massimo Bellini, Catania 64

FRANCE: Pinnacles of Style 66

Palais Garnier, Paris 70Opéra Comique, Paris 76High and Low 78Opéra Bastille, Paris 80Opéra Royal de Versailles, Versailles 82Opéra-Théâtre de Metz Métropole, Metz 86Grand-Théâtre de Bordeaux, Bordeaux 88Training as an Opera Singer 92Théâtre du Capitole, Toulouse 94Opéra Municipal de Marseille, Marseille 96

UNITED KINGDOM: Finding the Right Stage 98

Royal Opera House, London 102Stars of the Opera 108Coliseum Theatre, London 110Glyndebourne Opera House, Glyndebourne 114Opera Festivals 118Wales Millennium Centre, Cardiff 120

GERMANY: High Drama 122

Staatsoper Unter den Linden, Berlin 126Komische Oper, Berlin 132Deutsche Oper, Berlin 134Art of the Opera 138Hamburgische Staatsoper, Hamburg 140Semperoper, Dresden 144Markgräfl iches Opernhaus, Bayreuth 148Bayreuther Festspielhaus, Bayreuth 150The “Complete Art” of Wagner 156Cuvilliés-Theater, Munich 158Nationaltheater München, Munich 160In the Pit 164

Where Tradition Flourished 166

NORTHERN EUROPE: Standing Apart 168

Operahuset, Oslo 170Drottningholms Slottsteater, Stockholm 172Stage Machinery 176Kungliga Operan, Stockholm 178Operaen, Copenhagen 182Het Muziektheater, Amsterdam 186Théâtre Royal de la Monnaie, Brussels 190Leading Lights 194

c o n t





Introduction 12

Crucibles of a New Art 18

ITALY: Setting the Standard 20

Teatro alla Scala, Milan 24Arena di Verona, Verona 30Teatro La Fenice, Venice 32Parts of an Opera House 36Teatro Regio di Parma, Parma 38Teatro Comunale di Bologna, Bologna 42Teatro Rossini, Pesaro 44Opera Singers 46Teatro dell’Opera di Roma, Rome 48Teatro di San Carlo, Naples 52Impresarios 58Teatro Massimo, Palermo 60Teatro Massimo Bellini, Catania 64

FRANCE: Pinnacles of Style 66

Palais Garnier, Paris 70Opéra Comique, Paris 76High and Low 78Opéra Bastille, Paris 80Opéra Royal de Versailles, Versailles 82Opéra-Théâtre de Metz Métropole, Metz 86Grand-Théâtre de Bordeaux, Bordeaux 88Training as an Opera Singer 92Théâtre du Capitole, Toulouse 94Opéra Municipal de Marseille, Marseille 96

UNITED KINGDOM: Finding the Right Stage 98

Royal Opera House, London 102Stars of the Opera 108Coliseum Theatre, London 110Glyndebourne Opera House, Glyndebourne 114Opera Festivals 118Wales Millennium Centre, Cardiff 120

GERMANY: High Drama 122

Staatsoper Unter den Linden, Berlin 126Komische Oper, Berlin 132Deutsche Oper, Berlin 134Art of the Opera 138Hamburgische Staatsoper, Hamburg 140Semperoper, Dresden 144Markgräfl iches Opernhaus, Bayreuth 148Bayreuther Festspielhaus, Bayreuth 150The “Complete Art” of Wagner 156Cuvilliés-Theater, Munich 158Nationaltheater München, Munich 160In the Pit 164

Where Tradition Flourished 166

NORTHERN EUROPE: Standing Apart 168

Operahuset, Oslo 170Drottningholms Slottsteater, Stockholm 172Stage Machinery 176Kungliga Operan, Stockholm 178Operaen, Copenhagen 182Het Muziektheater, Amsterdam 186Théâtre Royal de la Monnaie, Brussels 190Leading Lights 194

c o n t




CENTRAL EUROPE: Cultural Crossroads 196

Grand Théâtre de Genève, Geneva 200Opernhaus Zürich, Zurich 204Theater an der Wien, Vienna 206The Libretto 208Wiener Staatsoper, Vienna 210Volksoper Wien, Vienna 216Grosses Festspielhaus, Salzburg 218The Cult of the Conductor 222

SOUTHERN EUROPE: In a New Light 224

Teatro Nacional de São Carlos, Lisbon 226Teatro Real, Madrid 228Teatro de la Zarzuela, Madrid 230Costumes and Makeup 232Gran Teatre del Liceu, Barcelona 234Palau de les Arts Reina Sofía, Valencia 238Opéra de Monte-Carlo, Monte Carlo 242Royal Patrons 246

EASTERN EUROPE: Opulence on Show 248

National Theatre, Belgrade 250Národní Divadlo, Prague 252Magyar Állami Operaház, Budapest 256From the Ashes 258Teatr Wielki, Warsaw 260Bolshoi Theatre, Moscow 262Mariinsky Theatre, St. Peter sburg 266Opera Houses in World War II 270

New Frontiers 272

UNITED STATES: Democracy and Privilege 274

Metropolitan Opera House, New York City 278Stage Direction 284John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts,

Washington, DC 286Civic Opera House, Chicago 290War Memorial Opera House, San Francisco 294Dorothy Chandler Pavilion, Los Angeles 298Opera and the Movies 300The Crosby Theatre, Santa Fe 302Wortham Theater Center, Houston 304

LATIN AMERICA: Splendid Isolation 306

Palacio de Bellas Artes, Mexico City 308Audience Responses 312Teatro Amazonas, Manaus 314Teatro Municipal de Santiago, Santiago 316Teatro Colón, Buenos Aires 318Theater Acoustics 322

ASIA AND AUSTRALIA: Tradition and Innovation 324

Hanoi Opera House, Hanoi 326National Centre for the Performing Arts, Beijing 328Opera and Vernacular Styles 332Sydney Opera House, Sydney 334Famous Modern Stagings 340

Glossary 342Bibliography 343Index 346Picture Credits 352

e n t s



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As the art form of opera developed through the

seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, principally

in Italy, France, Germany, and England, traditional

theater design was adapted to create a new type of

venue: the opera house. And gradually a plethora of

distinctive architectural styles emerged, from restrained

Neoclassicism to the extravagance of the Belle Époque

and the geometric patterns of Art Deco.

LEFT The incredibly ornate ceilings and

chandeliers in the Palais Garnier, Paris.

crucibles of a new art


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52 C RU C I B L E S O F A N E W A RT

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OPPOSITE PAGE Opera lovers

admire the beautifully restored

decor of the Teatro di San

Carlo in January 2010.

BELOW The founder of the

theater, Charles VII of Naples,

assumed the title of Charles III

of Spain in 1759.

hough it no longer rivals La Scala as a household name nor has the contemporary

cachet of, say, Teatro La Fenice, Teatro di San Carlo is undoubtedly one of the most beautiful opera houses in the world. Moreover, it is Italy’s oldest opera house and the oldest work ing opera house in Europe, having presented per-formances continu ously since its founda tion, with just a few brief interruptions. To visit the Teatro di San Carlo today is thus to reenter the glam orous world of the theater’s—and Naples’s—early nineteenth-century operatic heyday, especially on a performance night, when music and spectacle work their magic and the glorious setting is further enlivened by the inimitable style and brio of the knowledgeable Neapolitan public, ever primed to proclaim fervent appreciation or haughty and withering disdain.

A Miraculous ConstructionTeatro di San Carlo owes its origin—and its name—to the Spanish Bourbon king of Naples, Charles VII. Following his reconquest of Naples from the Austrians in 1734, Charles not only decided to settle in the city but also began reshaping it in a style befi tting an imperial capital. An enthusiastic artist and connoisseur of music, Charles regularly attended operas at the city’s Teatro San Bartolomeo but became dissatisfi ed with its size, facilities, and, especially, the inadequate access for royal carriages—there was little room in

the narrow streets for an appropriately grand entrance. Legend has it that a near accident, when the king’s horses stumbled on uneven paving stones and the royal carriage almost overturned, was the last straw for Charles VII.

In 1736, he had the Teatro San Bartolomeo razed to the ground, and commissioned architects Giovanni Antonio Medrano and Angelo Carasale to construct a new opera house north of the new Palazzo Reale

(Royal Palace). It was a tall order, for Charles VII asked for “the largest [opera house] in Europe and in as little time as possible,” but Medrano and Carasale obliged, completing the building within eight months and ten days, in time for the theater to open on the king’s name day, November 4, the day of St. Charles—San Carlo. This achievement won both men much welcome royal favor, and Carasale an enviable nickname for the wonders he had worked in the sumptuous interior: “Man of Miracles.”

Musical Capital of EuropeWith the king, his courtiers, and the cream of Nea-politan society in attendance, the Real Teatro di San Carlo (Royal Theatre of St. Charles) commenced its remarkable history with a performance of Domenico Sarro’s Achille in Sciro (1737), featuring a libretto by Metastasio. True to the convention of the day, Achille was played by a woman, Vittoria Tesi; also starring

Visiting the newly renovated Teatro di San Carlo in 1817, the French

writer Stendhal was astounded by its magnifi cence. “It dazzles the eyes,

it enraptures the soul,” he wrote. Remarkably, thanks to its enduring

prestige and popularity, careful maintenance, and, not least, a recent

multimillion-euro renovation, the Teatro di San Carlo today remains

the wondrous vision that left Stendhal bedazzled and breathless.

Year of Construction 1737

InaugurationNovember 4, 1737

Opening PerformanceAchille in Sciro (1737)

by Domenico Sarro

Renovations 1816 (rebuilt after fi re), 2009 (major renovation)

Architects Giovanni Antonio Medrano and Angelo Carasale (1737),

Antonio Niccolini (1816)

Seating 3,285

Teatro DI San CarloNAPLES

TABOVE The facade of the

Teatro di San Carlo features

its full and offi cial name

inscribed above the entrance.


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BELOW Like his father before

him, Ange-Jacques Gabriel

was the chief architect for

the King of France.

ABOVE Louis Jean-Jacques

Durameau’s plafond (ceiling)

painting gives the illusion of

looking up to the heavens.

L Years of Construction 1763–70

Inauguration May 16, 1770

Opening Performance Persée (1682)

by Jean-Baptiste Lully

Renovations 1871 (converted to house the National Assembly),

1952–57, 2007–9

Architects Ange-Jacques Gabriel (1763–70), Edmond de

Joly (1871), André Japy (1952–57), Frédéric Didier (2007–9)

Seating 712

Opéra Royal DE VersaillesVERSAILLES

ouis XIV moved his court and the seat of his govern -ment to the Château de

Versailles in 1682, but the palace had no permanent theater capable of hosting operatic performances. A theater was begun in 1685 but soon abandoned, and perfor-mances of important operas such as Jean-Baptiste Lully’s Alceste (1674) and Jean-Philippe Rameau’s La princesse de Navarre (1745) took place in a variety of spaces. These ranged from outdoor and temporary theaters to the Grande Écurie, the covered riding arena. There was a small theater, the Salle de la Comédie, completed in 1681, which only held 250 spectators, but this was used mainly for plays. This theater was destroyed in 1769 to provide access to the gardens. Another theater was built in 1688 but destroyed in 1703.

Under Louis XV’s mistress, Madame de Pompa -dour, a portable theater known as the Théâtre des Petits Cabinets was built in 1748 within the rooms of the king’s apartments. Madame de Pompadour and other courtiers fi lled the dramatic roles, took part in the dances, and played in the orchestra during perfor-mances in this theater, which included Lully’s Acis et Galatée (1686) and André Campra’s Tancrède (1702). In 1751, the Grande Écurie burned down, and the Salle de la Comédie was just too compact for big productions. The need for a larger permanent theater had been recognized for a number of years, but events such as the Seven Years’ War (1756–63) intervened to prevent its construction. Finally, in 1763, Louis XV engaged Ange-Jacques Gabriel to design a permanent theater.

A Permanent Theater at Long LastGabriel decided to use the 1685 design of Jules Hardouin Mansart and Gaspare Vigarani that had been abandoned during the War of the Spanish Succession (1701–14). The theater was an oval shape with Corinthian columns and a pair of double columns to mark the proscen-ium. There were three tiers of boxes on each side of the stage, enclosed by another pair of columns, and then—in a break from the stacked tiers of Italian

theaters—two balconies formed a ring in the rear half of the theater. The theater was built entirely of wood, which was painted to represent marble and stone; this afforded the theater excellent acoustics.

Built between 1763 and 1770, the Opéra Royal de Versailles is one of

the very few eighteenth-century wooden theaters to survive to the present

day. Built to an oval plan, it is the perfect example of a court theater and

one of the best representations of Neoclassical decoration in France. Fully

restored, it can now be experienced in its full eighteenth-century glory.

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BELOW Like his father before

him, Ange-Jacques Gabriel

was the chief architect for

the King of France.

ABOVE Louis Jean-Jacques

Durameau’s plafond (ceiling)

painting gives the illusion of

looking up to the heavens.

L Years of Construction 1763–70

Inauguration May 16, 1770

Opening Performance Persée (1682)

by Jean-Baptiste Lully

Renovations 1871 (converted to house the National Assembly),

1952–57, 2007–9

Architects Ange-Jacques Gabriel (1763–70), Edmond de

Joly (1871), André Japy (1952–57), Frédéric Didier (2007–9)

Seating 712

Opéra Royal DE VersaillesVERSAILLES

ouis XIV moved his court and the seat of his govern -ment to the Château de

Versailles in 1682, but the palace had no permanent theater capable of hosting operatic performances. A theater was begun in 1685 but soon abandoned, and perfor-mances of important operas such as Jean-Baptiste Lully’s Alceste (1674) and Jean-Philippe Rameau’s La princesse de Navarre (1745) took place in a variety of spaces. These ranged from outdoor and temporary theaters to the Grande Écurie, the covered riding arena. There was a small theater, the Salle de la Comédie, completed in 1681, which only held 250 spectators, but this was used mainly for plays. This theater was destroyed in 1769 to provide access to the gardens. Another theater was built in 1688 but destroyed in 1703.

Under Louis XV’s mistress, Madame de Pompa -dour, a portable theater known as the Théâtre des Petits Cabinets was built in 1748 within the rooms of the king’s apartments. Madame de Pompadour and other courtiers fi lled the dramatic roles, took part in the dances, and played in the orchestra during perfor-mances in this theater, which included Lully’s Acis et Galatée (1686) and André Campra’s Tancrède (1702). In 1751, the Grande Écurie burned down, and the Salle de la Comédie was just too compact for big productions. The need for a larger permanent theater had been recognized for a number of years, but events such as the Seven Years’ War (1756–63) intervened to prevent its construction. Finally, in 1763, Louis XV engaged Ange-Jacques Gabriel to design a permanent theater.

A Permanent Theater at Long LastGabriel decided to use the 1685 design of Jules Hardouin Mansart and Gaspare Vigarani that had been abandoned during the War of the Spanish Succession (1701–14). The theater was an oval shape with Corinthian columns and a pair of double columns to mark the proscen-ium. There were three tiers of boxes on each side of the stage, enclosed by another pair of columns, and then—in a break from the stacked tiers of Italian

theaters—two balconies formed a ring in the rear half of the theater. The theater was built entirely of wood, which was painted to represent marble and stone; this afforded the theater excellent acoustics.

Built between 1763 and 1770, the Opéra Royal de Versailles is one of

the very few eighteenth-century wooden theaters to survive to the present

day. Built to an oval plan, it is the perfect example of a court theater and

one of the best representations of Neoclassical decoration in France. Fully

restored, it can now be experienced in its full eighteenth-century glory.



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83F R A N C E : P I N N A C L E S O F S T Y L E

Directed by the well-known Parisian sculptor Augustin Pajou, the tasteful decoration—centered on Apollo and the Olympian deities—was the height of Neoclassical ornamentation. Pajou sculpted the bas-reliefs for the theater, and supervised all the other decorative elements. The central ceiling can-vas was painted by Louis Jean-Jacques Durameau to depict Apollo preparing the crowns for the illus-trious Men of Arts. At the time it was built, the theater was the largest in Europe and represented the pinnacle of theater design.

Expense and Public OutcryProductions at the theater were hugely expensive—just one performance could use up to 10,000 candles. Outrage at the cost of early performances eventu-ally forced Madame de Pompadour to move her productions to her own château at Bellevue. In the political environment of the 1780s, public anger was best avoided! There was a subsequent decline in the number of performances at the new theater.

When rare performances were mounted under Louis XVI, they became the events of the year. Such performances included a revival of Rameau’s greatest opera, Castor et Pollux (1737), in 1777, and a revival of Christoph Willibald Gluck’s Iphigénie en Aulide (1774) in 1782 and his Armide (1777) in 1784. Nearly all of these events coincided with royal visits—Castor et Pollux for Emperor Joseph II (Marie Antoinette’s brother) and Armide for Gustav III of Sweden (who was himself the subject of several later operas, such as Giuseppe Verdi’s Un ballo in maschera [1861]). One reason that most of these operatic performances were revivals is that the themes and sentiments of earlier works properly refl ected the

attributes that the royalty of the Ancien Régime wanted to see and believed that they themselves embodied. They were also tried and tested operas, whereas a new work might not strike the right note, or it might run the risk of alienating an important visitor.

RIGHT Boxes at the Opéra Royal de

Versailles feature ornate lattice screens

that can be closed against prying eyes.

LEFT A 1674 staging of Alceste (1674)

by Jean-Baptiste Lully, given in the Marble

Courtyard of the Château de Versailles.

R oya l P e r f o r m a n c e s The idea of royal performances in court theaters extended back to Louis XIV, who was a renowned dancer; Jean-Baptiste Lully even wrote music expressly for dances by the “Sun King.” Both Madame de Pompadour and Marie Antoinette enjoyed singing and performing. In fact, Marie Antoinette—as queen—performed the lead role of Colette in Jean-Jacques Rousseau’s Le devin du village (1752) in 1780. She and her troupe performed various opéras comiques, and she also took on roles such as Rosine in Pierre Beaumarchais’s play Le barbier de Séville (1775).



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C RU C I B L E S O F A N E W A RT84

ABOVE A gorgeous detail from

one of the many decorative

paintings found in the Opéra

Royal de Versailles.

Closure, Neglect, and ConversionThe theater hosted perfor-mances by the companies from the Opéra, the Comédie-Française, and the Comédie-Italienne, but also held balls and banquets, with a removable fl oor that could be extended from the stage to the other side of the auditorium. The very last event at the theater before the fall of Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette was a banquet held

in October 1789 to welcome the Flanders Regiment, which had been brought to Versailles to strengthen the garrison against the revolutionary rumblings from Paris. As is well known, those revolutionary rumblings were unstoppable and eventually led to the overthrow of the monarchy and the establish-ment of the Republic.

Versailles and its theater were closed after the French Revolution. Although Napoleon I and Louis XVIII both used the palace and restored various aspects of the buildings, the theater remained closed until 1837. At that time the theater was redecorated, and Molière’s Le Misanthrope (1666) was presented by the Comedie-Française for King Louis-Philippe to celebrate the opening of the Museum of the History of France at the palace. Louis-Philippe, in line with his title as “Citizen-King” and his unpretentious style, was not keen on lavish or expensive entertainments. He had commanded that the entire theater be repainted in red and gold, that the royal box be removed, and that ballroom and banquet fi xtures

be discarded. He had also changed the lighting and seating. The performance of Molière’s play was, unfortunately, a failure, but Versailles was once again capable of holding performances.

After King Louis-Philippe’s forced abdication in 1848, and Napoleon III’s coup d’état in 1851, the new emperor once again used the theater as a banquet room, to welcome Queen Victoria and Prince Albert in 1855 as part of his earnest efforts to reconcile France and England. Even though England had been central to the defeat of his uncle Napoleon Bonaparte, Napoleon III was determined to be on good terms with England. He was England’s ally during the Crimean War (1853–56), and he traveled to Dunkirk to personally escort Victoria and Albert to Paris. Napoleon III also had had the theater converted to gas lighting, along with Versailles’s Marble Courtyard and Hall of Mirrors. The banquet at the theater was the culmi-nation of the festivities to welcome the English queen and her consort. Some 1,200 guests attended, and there were dances and fi reworks; a second ball was held in the Hall of Mirrors after the dinner, which lasted until 3 am.

In the political upheaval of the Franco-Prussian War (1870–71) and the Paris Commune of 1871, the National Assembly decided to move to Versailles, where they were to stay until 1879. Edmond de Joly, who had already con-verted the Grand-Théâtre de Bordeaux to house the National Assembly in 1870, was also in charge of converting the theater at Versailles and constructing the Salle du Congrès. The National Assembly met in the theater for the fi rst time in March 1871, and continued to meet there until 1876. Thereafter, the Senate met in the theater until August 1879.

A Glorious Restoration Between 1952 and 1957, the theater was restored to its 1770 appearance under the direction of André Japy. Prior to 1952, the Senate had blocked all attempts to use or restore the theater. However, after a determined campaign, Japy gained the support of the Senate and was able to proceed with his plans.

BELOW This 1850 illustration

depicts the view from the stage

during a performance at the

Opéra Royal de Versailles.


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These meticulous restorations were acclaimed for their care and accuracy. It was only fi tting that Queen Elizabeth II opened the restored theater, since she had contributed greatly to its restoration. Following a long tradition, the performance that night was of Rameau’s Les Indes galantes (1735).

The theater continued to be used to welcome foreign dignitaries; ballets were performed for President Kennedy in 1961. It also welcomed Mikhail Gorbachev in 1985 and Boris Yeltsin in 1991. After the restoration, the Opéra company had the right to perform at the theater, but it had to seek authorization for each performance from parliament. In 2007, the theater was again closed, and architect Frédéric Didier brought it up to modern safety standards. He restored several

aspects of the theater still untouched since 1957, and removed or updated unsafe features such as the fi re curtain that had been in place since the 1950s. Following these renovations, regular performances were fi nally instituted at the theater.

ABOVE The auditorium of the

Opéra Royal de Versailles

appears to be constructed from

marble, but it is actually wood

that has been cleverly painted.

LEFT Mezzo-soprano Teresa

Berganza gave an emotional

performance at the Opéra

Royal de Versailles in 1985.



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United Kingdom— Fi n d i n g t h e R i g h t S t a g e —

Henry Purcell did not write the fi rst English opera—that accolade is usually given to his

teacher, John Blow, who composed Venus and Adonis in the early 1680s, some years before

Purcell produced his masterpiece, Dido and Aeneas (1689). But when Purcell died in 1695,

there is no doubt that England lost its greatest composer of theater music.

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United Kingdom— Fi n d i n g t h e R i g h t S t a g e —

Henry Purcell did not write the fi rst English opera—that accolade is usually given to his

teacher, John Blow, who composed Venus and Adonis in the early 1680s, some years before

Purcell produced his masterpiece, Dido and Aeneas (1689). But when Purcell died in 1695,

there is no doubt that England lost its greatest composer of theater music.

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99U N I T E D K I N G D O M : F I N D I N G T H E R I G H T S TA G E

LEFT At the age of 20, Henry

Purcell became the organist at

Westminster Abbey; he was

buried there after his death.

OPPOSITE PAGE The Pirates

of Penzance (1879) by

W. S. Gilbert and Arthur

Sullivan is a quintessential

British comic opera.

BELOW An eighteenth-century

depiction of Act 3 from John

Gay’s The Beggar’s Opera

(1728) by William Hogarth.

H ad Purcell lived beyond his thirties, who knows what he might have achieved. As it is, some of his other dramatic works, especially King

Arthur (1691), The Fairy-Queen (1692), and The Indian Queen (1695)—although not fully operatic in scope—show us that he was completely at home writing for the stage. Fortunately, the English would not have long to wait for another genius to come and live among them.

When German-born George Frideric Handel settled in London in 1712, he was already an established composer of operas and oratorios. But it was not until the 1720s that he produced his greatest works for the stage, including Julius Caesar (1724) and Rodelinda (1725). At least 25 of his operas were fi rst performed at the Queen’s Theatre in the Haymarket. The theater had been built in 1705 by playwright and architect John Vanbrugh, and it soon developed a reputation for opera. Handel himself became a joint manager of the theater in 1729.

John Gay’s ballad opera, The Beggar’s Opera, opened to huge success at Lincoln’s Inn Fields Theatre in 1728, enabling the theater manager to build the Theatre Royal, Covent Garden, in 1732. Handel availed himself of the new venue, but by this time he was increasingly turning his attention to other forms of composition, and he wrote his last opera in 1741.

Thomas Arne, best known for his famous song “Rule, Britannia!,” was already an established composer when he joined the Theatre Royal, Covent Garden, in the 1750s. In 1760, he produced the fi rst totally sung English comic opera, Thomas and Sally, and in 1762 the fi rst opera seria in English, Artaxerxes. This was an outstanding success and frequently revived. On a visit to London in 1791, Austrian composer Joseph Haydn attended a performance and was astonished that such a work even existed.

The King’s TheatreThe Queen’s Theatre survived until it was destroyed by a fi re in 1789; the new King’s Theatre opened on the same site in 1791. The theater commissioned an opera by Haydn in the 1790s (which was, in fact, never performed) and also premiered several of the composer’s best-known symphonies. In 1811, it hosted the London premieres of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart’s operas Così fan tutte (1790) and The Magic Flute (1791), and in 1816, Don Giovanni (1787). British

premieres of several Gioachino Rossini operas followed, including La Cenerentola (1817) and The Barber of Seville (1816). By the 1820s the theater was

known as the Italian Opera House, and in 1824 Rossini was invited to conduct his operas

for a season, including the British premiere of Semiramide (1823), but things ended unhappily for the composer when the theater fell into fi nancial diffi culties and he was never paid.

On Queen Victoria’s accession to the throne in 1837, the theater

changed its name to Her Majesty’s Theatre, and by the 1840s it was hosting

British premieres of Giuseppe Verdi’s operas. The fi rst were Nabucco (1842) and Ernani (1844), but in 1847 the theater hosted the world premiere of the composer’s I masnadieri, with the “Swedish Nightingale” Jenny Lind in the role of Amalia. Jenny Lind’s London appearances in this and in Giacomo Meyerbeer’s Robert le diable (1831) created a sensation, but when musical director Michael Costa led a defec-tion of orchestral players and singers to the Theatre Royal, Covent Garden, in 1847, the theater fell dark.

The Covent Garden fi re in 1856 provided an opportunity to revive opera at Her Majesty’s Theatre, which hosted the British premiere of Verdi’s La traviata (1853) that year, followed by Luisa Miller (1849) in 1858. For almost a decade the theater enjoyed further operatic successes, with premieres of Charles Gounod’s Faust (1859) and Verdi’s La forza del destino (1862), but in 1867 Her Majesty’s Theatre also suffered a devastating fi re.


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170 W H E R E T RA D I T I O N F L O U R I S H E D

ABOVE The warmth of the

interior wood paneling is a

striking contrast to the cool

whiteness of the exterior.

BELOW Pedestrians and

skateboarders alike are

encouraged to enjoy the

views of Oslo from the

roof of Operahuset.

D

OperahusetOSLO

espite a small population of around 5 million, the audience for opera and

ballet in Norway grew stronger each year. In 1957, the state opera company, Den Norske Opera, started performing in a 1,050-seat converted cinema, but this was always deemed an unsatisfactory venue. The campaign for a purpose-built opera house began with the Norwegian parliament accepting a 1998 proposal to construct one as part of the redevelopment of the suburb of Bjørvika. An international competition, which received over 200 entries, was held in 2000, with the company Snøhetta named as the winner.

Opera Under FootAs the world’s fi rst opera house that can be walked on, Operahuset’s canopy of about 33,000 slabs of Italian Carrara marble—covering 3.7 acres (1.5 hectares)—has become a major attraction for locals and visitors

alike. The roof design and the choice of Italian over Norwegian stone caused considerable con-troversy, but detailed testing concluded that the visual and technical quality of the Italian marble was superior to—as well as half the price of—local stone. Norwegian sensitivities were allayed somewhat by the placement of local granite at the water’s edge; the green stone mimics the color of the water. Within one year of its installation, over 20,000 people had climbed the roof. Within two years of opening, the complex had

welcomed over one million visitors. The marble began to turn yellow because of the cold climate, but scientists have developed a way of drying the marble to retain its whiteness.

The glass facade, 50 ft (15 m) high in places, rises out of the marble-canopied exterior, allowing natural light into the foyer by day and the foyer light to illuminate the canopy by night. The specially

Land meets sea as the snow-white roof of Operahuset, Oslo’s new opera

house, mimics Norway’s mountainous landscape, and runs like a fjord

into the harbor waters. Nearly a decade in planning and construction

and costing some US$750 million, the enormous structure heralded an

equally massive shift in Norway’s enthusiasm for opera.

OPPOSITE PAGE, TOP The

eye-catching stage curtain

appears to be metallic, but

is actually made from woven

cotton, wool, and polyester.

Years of Construction 2003–8

Inauguration April 12, 2008

Opening PerformanceOrfeo (1607)

by Claudio Monteverdi

Renovations None

ArchitectsSnøhetta (company)—Tarald

Lundevall, Martin Dietrichson, Ibrahim El Hayawan, Chandani

Ratnawira, Harriet Rikheim, and Marianne Sætre

SeatingMain House: 1,369; Second

House: 400; Studio: 200

K5 Job No: CPL0812-38/PEIHUA

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170 W H E R E T RA D I T I O N F L O U R I S H E D

ABOVE The warmth of the

interior wood paneling is a

striking contrast to the cool

whiteness of the exterior.

BELOW Pedestrians and

skateboarders alike are

encouraged to enjoy the

views of Oslo from the

roof of Operahuset.

D

OperahusetOSLO

espite a small population of around 5 million, the audience for opera and

ballet in Norway grew stronger each year. In 1957, the state opera company, Den Norske Opera, started performing in a 1,050-seat converted cinema, but this was always deemed an unsatisfactory venue. The campaign for a purpose-built opera house began with the Norwegian parliament accepting a 1998 proposal to construct one as part of the redevelopment of the suburb of Bjørvika. An international competition, which received over 200 entries, was held in 2000, with the company Snøhetta named as the winner.

Opera Under FootAs the world’s fi rst opera house that can be walked on, Operahuset’s canopy of about 33,000 slabs of Italian Carrara marble—covering 3.7 acres (1.5 hectares)—has become a major attraction for locals and visitors

alike. The roof design and the choice of Italian over Norwegian stone caused considerable con-troversy, but detailed testing concluded that the visual and technical quality of the Italian marble was superior to—as well as half the price of—local stone. Norwegian sensitivities were allayed somewhat by the placement of local granite at the water’s edge; the green stone mimics the color of the water. Within one year of its installation, over 20,000 people had climbed the roof. Within two years of opening, the complex had

welcomed over one million visitors. The marble began to turn yellow because of the cold climate, but scientists have developed a way of drying the marble to retain its whiteness.

The glass facade, 50 ft (15 m) high in places, rises out of the marble-canopied exterior, allowing natural light into the foyer by day and the foyer light to illuminate the canopy by night. The specially

Land meets sea as the snow-white roof of Operahuset, Oslo’s new opera

house, mimics Norway’s mountainous landscape, and runs like a fjord

into the harbor waters. Nearly a decade in planning and construction

and costing some US$750 million, the enormous structure heralded an

equally massive shift in Norway’s enthusiasm for opera.

OPPOSITE PAGE, TOP The

eye-catching stage curtain

appears to be metallic, but

is actually made from woven

cotton, wool, and polyester.


Inauguration April 12, 2008

Opening PerformanceOrfeo (1607)

by Claudio Monteverdi

Renovations None

ArchitectsSnøhetta (company)—Tarald

Lundevall, Martin Dietrichson, Ibrahim El Hayawan, Chandani

Ratnawira, Harriet Rikheim, and Marianne Sætre

SeatingMain House: 1,369; Second

House: 400; Studio: 200


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designed walls of the Main House assist the acoustics by spreading the sound evenly around the auditorium, while the curved fronts of the three balcony levels serve to diffuse the sound. The orchestra pit can be raised or lowered according to the needs of the production, the pit can also be enlarged in the direction of the audience, and the entire stage can be reconfi gured to function as a concert hall.

From the lenslike chandelier, which is suspended inside an oval refl ector, 800 LED lights shine through 5,800 hand-cast crystals. The chandelier also acts as an acoustic refl ector: inside it, the clusters of crystals increase in size toward the stage. This confi guration allows more sound to pass through, contributing to reverberation throughout the auditorium.

The 75-ft by 36-ft (23-m by 11-m) stage curtain dominates the main auditorium and gives the illusion of being made from crumpled metal foil. It is actually a tapestry called Metafoil by American artist Pae White, which was woven in Belgium by projecting photographs of crumpled foil onto a computerized loom.

Room to ExperimentThe complex also has two smaller venues. The Second House has space to hold up to 55 musicians, and the fl exible seating for 400 can be adapted from traditional raked rows to an in-the-round confi guration. The other performance space, the Studio, can be used as a rehearsal room or as a performance space for an audience of 200 patrons.

The fl y-tower and production workshops are clad in aluminum and, like every aspect of the exterior—from the light fi xtures to the special door handles—they were designed by Snøhetta to complement the overall geometry of the building.

Operahuset is now the principal home of Den Norske Opera and Ballett. The combined companies are Norway’s largest performing arts institution, and the building houses workshops, administration offi ces, and rehearsal spaces for both companies as well as approximately 600 staff employed by them. Despite the size of the complex and the ever-popular white marble roof, Den Norske Opera and Ballett’s gen-eral director Tom Remlov believes that the stage is the “magnetic pole” of the entire venue. “It is from the stage that all meaning emanates, and it is toward the stage that all efforts are directed.”

ABOVE Stefan Herheim’s

staging of La bohème (1896)

by Giacomo Puccini at

Operahuset in 2012.

D e n N o r s k e O pe r aWith the founding in 1950 of the Norske Operaselskap (Norwegian Opera Company), Norway at last had its fi rst fully professional opera company. Kirsten Flagstad, who had recently retired from her illustrious stage career in Wagnerian opera, sang Brünnhilde for the last time in a 1956 concert broadcast of Götterdammerung (1876) with them, which was subsequently released on record. In 1957, the company became Den Norske Opera (Norwegian National Opera), with Flagstad as general manager from 1958 to 1960. Based at that time in Oslo’s Folketeatret (People’s Theater), Den Norske Opera gave its fi rst performance under its new name in 1959.


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central europe— C u l t u ra l C r o s s r o a d s —

Enclosed to the north, south, and west by opera’s heartlands and sharing much of their

cultural and linguistic heritage, the nations of Central Europe—Austria and Switzerland—

absorbed a host of operatic infl uences in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Central

Europe rapidly became a funnel through which the art form spread eastward.



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K5

central europe— C u l t u ra l C r o s s r o a d s —

Enclosed to the north, south, and west by opera’s heartlands and sharing much of their

cultural and linguistic heritage, the nations of Central Europe—Austria and Switzerland—

absorbed a host of operatic infl uences in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Central

Europe rapidly became a funnel through which the art form spread eastward.


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197

FC E N T R A L E U RO P E : C U LT U R A L C RO S S ROA D S

K5

rom medieval times, most of Central Europe, including present-day Germany and Austria, was under the rule of the Holy Roman

Empire, centered initially on Germany. In what is now Switzerland, however, small states known as cantons resisted imperial control and by 1500 had established de facto independence. Aside from a period of French dominance from 1798 to 1815, the cantons remained essentially independent thereafter and declared themselves a federal state in 1848. Since then Switzerland has, famously, remained neutral in all European confl icts.

The HaBsburg DynastyIn the thirteenth century, the Habsburg dynasty took control of what later became Austria. During the Reformation, German states within the empire became Protestant, placing them at odds with the Catholic Habsburgs. But despite ongoing confl ict with Protestant states to the west and north, and with the Ottoman Empire to the southeast, the Habsburgs continued to extend their territories through the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. By the time of the Napoleonic campaigns, their empire stretched from Switzerland and Italy in the west and through Austria, Bohemia, and Hungary to the border of Russia, forming a cultural conduit to the east.

The Austrian Empire was proclaimed in 1804, and following the Congress of Vienna in 1815 it emerged as one of Europe’s four major powers, along with Britain, Prussia, and Russia. However, the rise of nationalist and republican movements in Europe, culminating in the revolutions of 1848, began to undermine the empire, and Austria’s opposition to an independent German Confederation led to its defeat in the Austro-Prussian War of 1866, which was followed by the unifi cation of Germany. Austria was also forced to grant autonomy to Hungary, and in 1867 it became a dual monarchy: Austria-Hungary. The end of World War I brought about the complete collapse of the Habsburg Empire and the creation of the modern republic of Austria.

Opera in the Habsburg CourtItalian operas were staged in Austria as early as the seventeenth century, and their popularity was such that the Habsburg rulers invited several noted libret -tists and composers to work at the court in Vienna.

In 1730, Metastasio took up the position of court poet, in which capacity he penned numerous libretti, including La clemenza di Tito and Achille in Sciro. One of the pioneers of modern opera, Christoph Willibald Gluck, was appointed Kapell-meister (music director) in the 1750s, and it was in Vienna that he con-ducted his far-reaching reforms of the trad itional Italian opera genres.

In the 1780s, as “Poet to the Theatres,” Lorenzo Da

Ponte collaborated with composers including Antonio Salieri and Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart.

Having found cultural life in Salzburg too restrictive, Mozart had in 1781 taken up an invitation to work for Archbishop Colloredo

in Vienna and subsequently estab -lished himself as an independent

com poser in the city. He had already experienced signifi cant success with Italian-

language operas, notably La fi nta giardiniera (1775) and Idomeneo (1781). Austrian Emperor Joseph II was determined to nurture German theater and had renamed Vienna’s Burgtheater, established in 1741 by the Empress Maria Theresa, as the Nationaltheater. In particular, Joseph II was also keen to promote the singspiel, a tra ditional German form of musical drama, and with this in mind established a German-language opera company, the Nationalsingspiel, in 1778. The company commissioned Mozart to compose music for a libretto by Christoph Friedrich Bretzner and

ABOVE A painting of an

opera being performed at

the Schönbrunn Palace in

Vienna, Austria, in 1765.

LEFT Librettist Metastasio,

whose real name was Pietro

Antonio Domenico Trapassi,

was recognized as a talented

poet from a young age.

OPPOSITE PAGE Vienna’s

Schönbrunn Palace was the

seat of the Habsburg dynasty,

and several noted opera

composers worked there.

BELOW A 1793 set design by

Joseph and Peter Schaffer for

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart’s

The Magic Flute (1791).



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Gottlieb Stephanie. The result, The Abduction from the Seraglio (1782), was a great success and a landmark in German-language opera. The emperor wasn’t quite so impressed, and is said to have complained that the score had “too many notes.” Nevertheless, the opera was soon being performed throughout the empire and beyond, advancing the fortunes of Mozart and German opera.

Four years later, Mozart experienced even greater success, in collaboration with Lorenzo Da Ponte, with The Marriage of Figaro (1786). After debuting to a positive response in Vienna, it was performed in Prague to wide acclaim. This triumph resulted in the writing of another opera with Da Ponte, Don Giovanni (1787), which was received rapturously in Prague before establishing itself in the repertoire in Vienna and further afi eld.

Light and DarkDuring the nineteenth century, Austrian opera companies maintained a distinguished tradition of presenting works of opera seria, and Emperor Franz Josef ’s construction of the Wiener Staatsoper in the 1860s greatly enhanced the standing of that form of opera in Central Europe. Soon after, the genre known as operetta achieved immense success in France, notably with the works of Jacques Offenbach, and quickly spread eastward. Johann Strauss II, already hugely popular in Vienna for his dance music, began writing German operettas that drew large audiences, in particular to the Theater an der Wien. Strauss’s biggest success, Die Fledermaus (1874)—his third operetta—is still performed around the world.

In the early twentieth century, a prominent group of Austrian composers known as the Second Viennese School (Mozart and his peers were regarded as the First Viennese School) pioneered the use of atonality in music. Of this group, Arnold Schoenberg was undoubtedly the most infl uential, although his pupil Alban Berg had perhaps the most enduring success in applying the approach to the writing of operas. In particular, Berg’s dark, brood-ing works Wozzeck (1925) and Lulu (1937) managed to assert the value of the 12-tone technique while engaging more traditionally inclined operagoers with strong narrative, and these operas are still part of the repertoire today.

While Vienna remains the focus of opera in Austria, regional houses and companies have done much to maintain the art form’s popularity, notably the Oper Graz and the Stadttheater Klagenfurt. Salzburg’s status as a musical center has endured, and its annual summer music festival is one of the highlights of the international opera calendar. Another is the annual festival held at Bregenz in western Austria, which involves spectacular productions presented on an open-air stage fl oating on the edge of Lake Constance.

French InfluenceAlthough, unlike Austria, it did not play a pioneering role in the development of opera, Switzerland has readily absorbed diverse musical infl uences and innovations, partly as a result of its location and the fact that it encompasses three major linguistic regions: German, French, and Italian.

In the eighteenth century, Lausanne, in French-speaking Switzerland, had no fewer than 18 theaters, many offering regular performances of opere buffe or opéras comiques, mainly from the French repertoire.

ABOVE A late 1800s street

scene in Vienna shows the

imposing facade of the new

Wiener Staatsoper on the left.

D r i v i n g Fo rc eA key infl uence on Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart’s career and the develop ment of opera in Central Europe was Emanuel Schikaneder. A singer and

composer, Schikaneder was invited to Vienna by Joseph II in 1784 and produced a series of successful

comedies. In 1788, he established a company at the Theater auf der Wieden in the suburbs of Vienna, which led to

a collaboration with Mozart on The Magic Flute (1791), for which Schikaneder wrote the libretto. Several profi table seasons featuring Mozart’s operas allowed Schikaneder to build the grand Theater an der Wien, where Ludwig van Beethoven would later live for a time and premiere Fidelio (1805).



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Gottlieb Stephanie. The result, The Abduction from the Seraglio (1782), was a great success and a landmark in German-language opera. The emperor wasn’t quite so impressed, and is said to have complained that the score had “too many notes.” Nevertheless, the opera was soon being performed throughout the empire and beyond, advancing the fortunes of Mozart and German opera.

Four years later, Mozart experienced even greater success, in collaboration with Lorenzo Da Ponte, with The Marriage of Figaro (1786). After debuting to a positive response in Vienna, it was performed in Prague to wide acclaim. This triumph resulted in the writing of another opera with Da Ponte, Don Giovanni (1787), which was received rapturously in Prague before establishing itself in the repertoire in Vienna and further afi eld.

Light and DarkDuring the nineteenth century, Austrian opera companies maintained a distinguished tradition of presenting works of opera seria, and Emperor Franz Josef ’s construction of the Wiener Staatsoper in the 1860s greatly enhanced the standing of that form of opera in Central Europe. Soon after, the genre known as operetta achieved immense success in France, notably with the works of Jacques Offenbach, and quickly spread eastward. Johann Strauss II, already hugely popular in Vienna for his dance music, began writing German operettas that drew large audiences, in particular to the Theater an der Wien. Strauss’s biggest success, Die Fledermaus (1874)—his third operetta—is still performed around the world.

In the early twentieth century, a prominent group of Austrian composers known as the Second Viennese School (Mozart and his peers were regarded as the First Viennese School) pioneered the use of atonality in music. Of this group, Arnold Schoenberg was undoubtedly the most infl uential, although his pupil Alban Berg had perhaps the most enduring success in applying the approach to the writing of operas. In particular, Berg’s dark, brood-ing works Wozzeck (1925) and Lulu (1937) managed to assert the value of the 12-tone technique while engaging more traditionally inclined operagoers with strong narrative, and these operas are still part of the repertoire today.

While Vienna remains the focus of opera in Austria, regional houses and companies have done much to maintain the art form’s popularity, notably the Oper Graz and the Stadttheater Klagenfurt. Salzburg’s status as a musical center has endured, and its annual summer music festival is one of the highlights of the international opera calendar. Another is the annual festival held at Bregenz in western Austria, which involves spectacular productions presented on an open-air stage fl oating on the edge of Lake Constance.

French InfluenceAlthough, unlike Austria, it did not play a pioneering role in the development of opera, Switzerland has readily absorbed diverse musical infl uences and innovations, partly as a result of its location and the fact that it encompasses three major linguistic regions: German, French, and Italian.

In the eighteenth century, Lausanne, in French-speaking Switzerland, had no fewer than 18 theaters, many offering regular performances of opere buffe or opéras comiques, mainly from the French repertoire.

ABOVE A late 1800s street

scene in Vienna shows the

imposing facade of the new

Wiener Staatsoper on the left.

D r i v i n g Fo rc eA key infl uence on Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart’s career and the develop ment of opera in Central Europe was Emanuel Schikaneder. A singer and

composer, Schikaneder was invited to Vienna by Joseph II in 1784 and produced a series of successful

comedies. In 1788, he established a company at the Theater auf der Wieden in the suburbs of Vienna, which led to

a collaboration with Mozart on The Magic Flute (1791), for which Schikaneder wrote the libretto. Several profi table seasons featuring Mozart’s operas allowed Schikaneder to build the grand Theater an der Wien, where Ludwig van Beethoven would later live for a time and premiere Fidelio (1805).


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A major theater, La Comédie, opened in 1804 and presented a rich program of international opera over the next few decades. The 1930s saw the creation of the Théâtre Municipal, which later became the home of the prestigious Opéra Lausanne company.

Geneva was the site of the fi rst music conservatory, founded in 1835. Its Grand Théâtre de Genève opened in 1879, with a performance of Gioachino Rossini’s Guillaume Tell (1829), and thereafter it became one of the country’s leading venues. The city’s position as the cultural hub of French-speaking Switzerland was bolstered by the creation in 1918 of the Orchestre de la Suisse Romande (Orchestra of French-speaking Switzerland), which has since performed as the opera orchestra at the Grand Théâtre de Genève.

Swiss InspirationZurich became the leading cultural center in German-speaking Switzerland, and a prestigious theater was built there in 1834, known as the Aktientheater. When Richard Wagner’s political activities forced him into exile from Germany in 1849, he stayed in Zurich where he conducted and pres ented a number of works at the Aktientheater, inspiring wider interest in contemporary opera. Wagner’s fi ve-year relationship with Mathilde Wesendonck, the wife of a Zurich silk merchant, coincided with his composition of Tristan und Isolde (1865). The

Aktientheater burned down in 1890 and was replaced by Opernhaus Zürich, now a major cultural institution. Zurich’s annual summer festival usually includes innovative productions of operas.

Bern also has an established opera house, the Stadttheater Bern, as does trilingual Basel, at the meeting place of the French, German, and Swiss borders; its Theater Basel was founded in 1834. One of the country’s most unusual musical events is the Avenches Opera Festival, where performances are presented outdoors in 2,000-year-old Roman arenas.

ABOVE A performance in

2006 of Giuseppe Verdi’s

Il trovatore (1853) in the

Aventicum Arena, Avenches.

BELOW Spectacular sets on

the gorgeous Lake Constance

are a hallmark of the annual

Bregenz Festival in Austria.


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WH E RE TRA D I T I O N F L O U RI S H E D

ABOVE Francesco Algarotti’s

Essay on Opera (1755) had

a profound impact on many

aspects of opera, including

the choice of costumes.

D

COSTUMES AND MAKEUP

Just as elaborate scenery and awe-inspiring stage machinery became integral

to the splendor of early opera performances, costumes and makeup were equally

splendid and were often as fl orid as the singing. Modern costumes and makeup

may be more subtle, but they are still an important part of the performance.

uring the Baroque era, men wore Classical Greco-Roman attire, irrespective of the period or place in which the opera was set. The more

heroic the character, the bigger the plume in his helmet! Women wore contemporary clothes, although prima donnas often had outlandish additions, such as a long train that needed a pageboy to follow the singer and arrange the train as she moved across the stage.

Inspired by the standards of opera at the court of Frederick II, philosopher Francesco Algarotti pub-lished his Essay on Opera in 1755. One of the most important discussions about opera of the time and a major infl uence on the operatic reforms of the 1760s, Algarotti’s essay recommended—and led to—costumes and sets being historically appropriate and an integral part of the drama.

RIGHT Modern stagings of

Giacomo Puccini’s Madama

Butterfl y (1904) often utilize

costumes and makeup based

on traditional Japanese styles.



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WH E RE TRA D I T I O N F L O U RI S H E D

ABOVE Francesco Algarotti’s

Essay on Opera (1755) had

a profound impact on many

aspects of opera, including

the choice of costumes.

D

COSTUMES AND MAKEUP

Just as elaborate scenery and awe-inspiring stage machinery became integral

to the splendor of early opera performances, costumes and makeup were equally

splendid and were often as fl orid as the singing. Modern costumes and makeup

may be more subtle, but they are still an important part of the performance.

uring the Baroque era, men wore Classical Greco-Roman attire, irrespective of the period or place in which the opera was set. The more

heroic the character, the bigger the plume in his helmet! Women wore contemporary clothes, although prima donnas often had outlandish additions, such as a long train that needed a pageboy to follow the singer and arrange the train as she moved across the stage.

Inspired by the standards of opera at the court of Frederick II, philosopher Francesco Algarotti pub-lished his Essay on Opera in 1755. One of the most important discussions about opera of the time and a major infl uence on the operatic reforms of the 1760s, Algarotti’s essay recommended—and led to—costumes and sets being historically appropriate and an integral part of the drama.

RIGHT Modern stagings of

Giacomo Puccini’s Madama

Butterfl y (1904) often utilize

costumes and makeup based

on traditional Japanese styles.


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ABOVE Maria Callas’s dress

from the 1964 Covent Garden

production of Giacomo

Puccini’s Tosca (1900).

LEFT Feodor Chaliapin aimed

for vivid expressiveness in his

unique designs for his operatic

costumes and makeup.

Modern Opera costumesIn the twentieth century, it was still a common practice for star singers to have their own personal costumes. Nellie Melba had many of hers made by leading Parisian couturier Jean-Philippe Worth. One of his most famous creations was Melba’s hand-painted and jewel-encrusted cloak for her role of Elsa in Richard Wagner’s Lohengrin (1850). When Melba sang the role before the Russian Tsar and Tsarina, she was summoned during the perfor-mance so that the Tsarina could personally examine the beautiful cloak.

Ever fearful of sudden coughs or a dry throat, singers carry all manner of things in their costumes as a precaution. Enrico Caruso had pockets sewn into all his costumes in which he carried small bottles of salt water to gargle surreptitiously and clear his throat. Birgit Nilsson recalled Franco Corelli, her frequent stage partner, turning his back to the audi -ence during a performance, putting his hand down the front of his pants, and producing a moist sponge that he sucked then handed to a chorus singer.

Early twentieth-century American costume designer Joseph Urban was also a skilled lighting designer. He dispensed with footlights and created new lighting effects that enhanced the look of cos-tumes and sets. Designer Léon Bakst created color-ful and imaginative costumes for Sergei Diaghilev’s Russian opera and ballet seasons before World War I, and at the same time Alfred Roller’s designs for Richard Strauss’s Der Rosenkavalier (1911) were thought so perfect that Strauss’s publishers made them a requirement for other opera houses wishing to produce the opera.

memorable momentsIn 1964, the combination of producer Franco Zeffi -relli, soprano Maria Callas, and costume designer Marcel Escoffi er created a widely replicated example by rescuing Giacomo Puccini’s Tosca (1900) from more than half a century of accessories. “How I hate the posey-lady, grand diva Tosca who arrives with four dozen roses, a walking stick, wearing a large hat with feathers, and gloves, impeccably dressed as if she were going to visit the Queen or the Pope,” Zeffi relli remarked. “Tosca was never like that.”

In the twenty-fi rst century, however, costumes can wildly oppose the style and spirit of the original

production. Singers often wear contemporary fashion, just as women did in the Baroque era. Sometimes they even appear nude, as mezzo-soprano Birgitta Svendén did when playing a Rhine maiden at Bayreuth. Svendén offered an interesting view on costumes: “I think there should be a rule that every costume designer has to try a costume on themselves to see how it looks and how it affects movement. Then they will know what we singers have to go through.”

The magic of MakeupRobert Lloyd, one of the best Boris Godunovs of recent times, acknowledges the makeup skills of the greatest Boris Godunov of all time, Feodor Chaliapin: “The makeup he used for Boris, of which he was very proud, was truly splendid. Clearly it was designed to make Boris look as truly splendid and magnifi cent as possible.” Chaliapin was a master of makeup, but he had another bass to thank for the invention of stage makeup.

In the past, makeup was a haphazard and often hazardous affair. The oil base would melt under the heat of the stage lights, and the pigments often contained lead and other toxins. Grease paint, which is still occasionally in use today, was invented in the 1860s by the operatic bass Ludwig Leichner, who was both a singer and a chemist. He developed lead-free makeup sticks that could be blended together to create intricate illusions, which would not melt under the bright gas and, later, electric lights.

Makeup is now a sophisticated art, and opera houses employ special technicians who can trans-form singers into alluring sirens or, with the addition of prosthetic noses and other features, into witches and monsters. The great baritone Tito Gobbi, who almost always designed and applied his own makeup, summed up the art of makeup best as “a bridge, which takes you to the other side of fantasy.”



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ABOVE As well as a world-

renowned architect, Santiago

Calatrava is a talented sculptor

and painter.

ABOVE Perfectly refl ected in

the still waters, the Ciudad de

las Artes y las Ciencias has a

unique futuristic design.

T Years of Construction 1991–2005

Inauguration October 8, 2005

Opening PerformanceGala concert

Renovations2006 (main stage rebuilt after collapsing), 2007 (refi tting of

stage equipment after fl ooding)

ArchitectSantiago Calatrava

Seating Sala Principal: 1,700; Auditorium: 1,500;

Aula Magistral: 400; Teatre Martín i Soler: 380

The Palau de les Arts Reina Sofía opera and music venue was the fi nal addition

to the vast Ciudad de las Artes y las Ciencias (City of Arts and Sciences)

cultural complex in Valencia. The complex includes a science museum,

planetarium, IMAX cinema, undercover garden, and marine center. It was

completed in stages, with various venues opening between 1998 and 2005.

he opera house and multiple-venue music complex was inaugurated

with a concert on October 8, 2005, attended by its namesake Queen Sofía. The fi rst opera performance—Fidelio (1805) by Ludwig van Beethoven—occurred more than a year later, on October 25, 2006.

Covered in trencadís (a Catalan mosaic of small broken tiles), the building’s curved exterior is reminiscent of a cruise ship—an appropriate look as the building is surrounded by water. This is a remnant of the river Turia, which used to fl ow where the complex now stands before it was diverted after Valencia was fl ooded in 1956.

Extraordinary ArchitectSantiago Calatrava is a native of Valencia, but with a world-wide reputation. He trained in Zurich and won his fi rst major contract there to design a railway station for the city in 1983. Calatrava holds the record for designing bridges, having built fi ve in Spain (including the interconnecting bridges of the City of Arts and Sciences) and three others in France and Germany. Calatrava’s use of irregular fragments of white tile

(trencadís) in the City of Arts and Sciences recalls the work of the great Spanish architect Antoni Gaudí, who used the same type of tiles.

Palau DE LES Arts Reina SofíaVALENCIA



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K5

ABOVE As well as a world-

renowned architect, Santiago

Calatrava is a talented sculptor

and painter.

ABOVE Perfectly refl ected in

the still waters, the Ciudad de

las Artes y las Ciencias has a

unique futuristic design.


Inauguration October 8, 2005

Opening PerformanceGala concert

Renovations2006 (main stage rebuilt after collapsing), 2007 (refi tting of

stage equipment after fl ooding)

ArchitectSantiago Calatrava

Seating Sala Principal: 1,700; Auditorium: 1,500;

Aula Magistral: 400; Teatre Martín i Soler: 380

The Palau de les Arts Reina Sofía opera and music venue was the fi nal addition

to the vast Ciudad de las Artes y las Ciencias (City of Arts and Sciences)

cultural complex in Valencia. The complex includes a science museum,

planetarium, IMAX cinema, undercover garden, and marine center. It was

completed in stages, with various venues opening between 1998 and 2005.

he opera house and multiple-venue music complex was inaugurated

with a concert on October 8, 2005, attended by its namesake Queen Sofía. The fi rst opera performance—Fidelio (1805) by Ludwig van Beethoven—occurred more than a year later, on October 25, 2006.

Covered in trencadís (a Catalan mosaic of small broken tiles), the building’s curved exterior is reminiscent of a cruise ship—an appropriate look as the building is surrounded by water. This is a remnant of the river Turia, which used to fl ow where the complex now stands before it was diverted after Valencia was fl ooded in 1956.

Extraordinary ArchitectSantiago Calatrava is a native of Valencia, but with a world-wide reputation. He trained in Zurich and won his fi rst major contract there to design a railway station for the city in 1983. Calatrava holds the record for designing bridges, having built fi ve in Spain (including the interconnecting bridges of the City of Arts and Sciences) and three others in France and Germany. Calatrava’s use of irregular fragments of white tile

(trencadís) in the City of Arts and Sciences recalls the work of the great Spanish architect Antoni Gaudí, who used the same type of tiles.

Palau DE LES Arts Reina SofíaVALENCIA


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239S O U T H E R N E U RO P E : I N A N E W L I G H T

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ABOVE The Sala Principal

features light panels in the

ceiling, rather than a painting.

His designs for arts venues and public arenas include the Milwaukee Art Museum (2001) and the Athens Olympic Sports Complex (2004). Another Calatrava project is a new transportation hub at Ground Zero in New York City that has been likened to a bird being released from a pair of hands.

Calatrava’s fame with the locals of his hometown is assured. Crossing the bed of Valencia’s dried-up river Turia, the Alameda Bridge—which he designed—is unoffi cially called “Calatrava Bridge,” but now appears as such on maps of the city. During the construction of the Palau de les Arts Reina Sofía, Calatrava also designed and oversaw the construc-tion of an opera and concert venue in Tenerife in the Canary Islands.

Striking, Ultra-modern VenueLike most major cities, Valencia had an opera house—the Teatro Principal—but fi nancial diffi culties made regular seasons impossible. The city’s musical life improved in 1987 with a concert hall, the Palau de la Música, where opera was often given in concert. As one of the three largest cities in Spain, it was soon decided that Valencia should spend 250 million euros building a brand new opera house.

Standing 14 stories above ground, with three below ground, the Palau de les Arts Reina Sofía is one of the tallest opera houses in the world. It is a com -plex within a complex, covering over 430,550 sq ft (40,000 sq m). Curving expanses of white concrete guide visitors through the sequence of four perfor-mance spaces, each one coming as a surprise and each featuring a vista of the sky or city. Natural wood panels and colored leather seats contrast with the whiteness, adding touches of warmth.

The main hall, the Sala Principal, is fully equipped as an opera house but can be converted for dance, theater, and other performing arts. An exceptional ceiling is made up of elongated light boxes that slide down to form a high-tech curtain over the stage. It has an orchestra pit that can accommodate 120 musicians and can be raised or lowered according to the work performed. The 1,700 seats are raked to provide exceptional sight lines, and rather than surtitles projected on boards above the stage, each of the seat backs in the Sala Principal has a screen installed with an option for English, French, German, Japanese, Spanish, and the local Valencian language.

Above the Sala Principal is the 1,500-seat Audi -torium, which features a cinema screen that is able to project performances from the hall below. The

C l ev e r U s e o f S pac e The Teatre Martín i Soler was not in the original plan for architect Santiago Calatrava’s Palau de les Arts Reina Sofía. Calatrava used the space so well that he was able to fi t an entire extra auditorium for small-scale works into the available space and made it part of the fi nal design. “This is my present to you,” he told the Palau’s artistic administrator, Helga Schmidt.

Aula Magistral, seating 400 in 14 rows, is used for chamber music, while the Teatre Martín i Soler is a 380-seat experimental theater venue.

Artistic administrator Helga Schmidt was appointed to build the artistic company alongside the construction of the actual venue. Schmidt had previously been employed as the artistic administrator

TOP The Palau de les Arts

Reina Sofía has a dynamic

shape and fl uid lines.



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290 N E W F RO N T I E R S

ABOVE Henry Hering’s

sculptured pediment above

the entrance to the Civic

Opera House features

personifi cations of the arts.

BELOW A view of Uranus

Crosby’s opera house before

it burned down during the

Great Chicago Fire of 1871.

F

Civic Opera HouseCHICAGO

ounded in 1833, Chicago grew rapidly once rail and water links to the East

Coast were secured. By 1865, as the American Civil War ended, the new city boasted a splendid 3,000-seat opera house built by liquor tycoon Uranus Crosby. It was well supported by the growing infl ux of immigrants from Italy and Germany seek-ing their fortunes in the New World, but opera proved a more precarious business than whisky. Crosby fell foul of the law when

he oversold a fraudulent raffl e for the opera house, and the building was later razed to the ground during the Great Chicago Fire of 1871.

Opera and big business had become common partners in the United States already, and businessman Ferdinand Peck was the next entrepreneur to experiment with opera in Chicago. He launched an opera festival that was housed in an enor-mous exhibition center, and an estimated 10,000 people crowded in to hear soprano Adelina Patti performing in Giuseppe Verdi’s Aida (1871) in 1885. Peck ambitiously incorporated the Chicago

Auditorium Association in 1886 in order to develop the world’s largest and grandest theater, one that would rival the recently built Metropolitan Opera House in New York City.

The Auditorium TheatreChicago’s fi nest architects, Louis Sullivan and Dankmar Adler—who had worked on adapting the exhibition center as a theater for Peck—were hired to design the new theater, and were given an innovative brief. Like Crosby before him, but with even more democratic ambition, Peck envisioned the concept of a tall, multipurpose building that would house a giant theater. The money made from the 400-room hotel

and 130 offi ces that fl anked the theater would assist in paying for the cost of running the performances.

In the 1880s, the Auditorium Building was the largest and tallest building in the United States, at 17 stories high, and it housed the 4,200-seat Auditorium Theatre. The cost of the Auditorium Building reached above US$3 million, and its fortresslike exterior conveyed the power of its purpose. A young architect named Frank Lloyd Wright worked on the project, and claimed that the theater was “The greatest room for music and opera in the world—bar none.”

Despite this glowing appraisal, the theater eventually faced years of neglect. Today it is owned by Roosevelt University, and after a major renovation the theater is once again presenting ballets, musicals, and community projects. It is a Neo-Romanesque struc-ture with ornate mosaics, gilding, and murals, but the acoustics are not ideal for live performances.

Situated on Lake Michigan, the “Windy City” is the United States’

architectural heartland. Chicago gave birth to the modern skyscraper

as an expression of prosperity, urban growth, and democracy. Gigantic

opera houses were built there, but a homegrown opera company came

much later. A grand Art Deco palace hidden inside a giant offi ce

building is now home to the Lyric Opera of Chicago—one of

America’s fi nest opera companies.



Opening PerformanceAida (1871) by Giuseppe Verdi

Renovations 1955 (restoration), 1993–96

ArchitectsGraham, Anderson, Probst &

White (1927–29); Skidmore, Owings & Merrill (1993–96)

Seating 3,563


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ABOVE Henry Hering’s

sculptured pediment above

the entrance to the Civic

Opera House features

personifi cations of the arts.

BELOW A view of Uranus

Crosby’s opera house before

it burned down during the

Great Chicago Fire of 1871.

F

Civic Opera HouseCHICAGO

ounded in 1833, Chicago grew rapidly once rail and water links to the East

Coast were secured. By 1865, as the American Civil War ended, the new city boasted a splendid 3,000-seat opera house built by liquor tycoon Uranus Crosby. It was well supported by the growing infl ux of immigrants from Italy and Germany seek-ing their fortunes in the New World, but opera proved a more precarious business than whisky. Crosby fell foul of the law when

he oversold a fraudulent raffl e for the opera house, and the building was later razed to the ground during the Great Chicago Fire of 1871.

Opera and big business had become common partners in the United States already, and businessman Ferdinand Peck was the next entrepreneur to experiment with opera in Chicago. He launched an opera festival that was housed in an enor-mous exhibition center, and an estimated 10,000 people crowded in to hear soprano Adelina Patti performing in Giuseppe Verdi’s Aida (1871) in 1885. Peck ambitiously incorporated the Chicago

Auditorium Association in 1886 in order to develop the world’s largest and grandest theater, one that would rival the recently built Metropolitan Opera House in New York City.

The Auditorium TheatreChicago’s fi nest architects, Louis Sullivan and Dankmar Adler—who had worked on adapting the exhibition center as a theater for Peck—were hired to design the new theater, and were given an innovative brief. Like Crosby before him, but with even more democratic ambition, Peck envisioned the concept of a tall, multipurpose building that would house a giant theater. The money made from the 400-room hotel

and 130 offi ces that fl anked the theater would assist in paying for the cost of running the performances.

In the 1880s, the Auditorium Building was the largest and tallest building in the United States, at 17 stories high, and it housed the 4,200-seat Auditorium Theatre. The cost of the Auditorium Building reached above US$3 million, and its fortresslike exterior conveyed the power of its purpose. A young architect named Frank Lloyd Wright worked on the project, and claimed that the theater was “The greatest room for music and opera in the world—bar none.”

Despite this glowing appraisal, the theater eventually faced years of neglect. Today it is owned by Roosevelt University, and after a major renovation the theater is once again presenting ballets, musicals, and community projects. It is a Neo-Romanesque struc-ture with ornate mosaics, gilding, and murals, but the acoustics are not ideal for live performances.

Situated on Lake Michigan, the “Windy City” is the United States’

architectural heartland. Chicago gave birth to the modern skyscraper

as an expression of prosperity, urban growth, and democracy. Gigantic

opera houses were built there, but a homegrown opera company came

much later. A grand Art Deco palace hidden inside a giant offi ce

building is now home to the Lyric Opera of Chicago—one of

America’s fi nest opera companies.



Opening PerformanceAida (1871) by Giuseppe Verdi

Renovations 1955 (restoration), 1993–96

ArchitectsGraham, Anderson, Probst &

White (1927–29); Skidmore, Owings & Merrill (1993–96)

Seating 3,563


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ABOVE Between 2001 and 2003, a major

restoration of the Auditorium Theatre returned

it to its original colors and fi nishes.

Chicago’s Own OperaTouring opera companies—mainly from New York City, but also from Europe—played at the Auditorium Theatre, until a genuine Chicago enterprise evolved under the musical leadership of Cleofonte Campanini, who had been Manhattan Opera’s star conductor until the Met’s popularity closed them down. He introduced the singers Mary Garden, Maggie Teyte, Rosa Raisa, Amelita Galli-Curci, and Titta Ruffo, and was bankrolled by farm machinery heir Harold F. McCormick and his wife, Edith Rockefeller McCormick, daughter of the world’s richest man. When Harold bought out all the non-Chicagoan interests, the city had its fi rst independent opera company. This company eventually became the fi rst truly national touring opera, and it even challenged the Met on its home turf in New York City.

Campanini died tragically in 1919 of pneumonia, and when no stable successor could be found, the company made a curious and fateful appointment. Mary Garden had been a sensation playing the operatic heroines of Jules Massenet and Richard Strauss, and she was a champion of contemporary opera and modernist music. Her one and only season as director of Chicago Opera included a new commission—the extraordinary The Love for Three Oranges (1921) by American-based Russian composer Sergei Prokofi ev. Lavish casting and huge overspends in all areas of production meant that Garden went out in a blaze of glory, leaving the company with a huge defi cit. This tried the McCormicks’ patience too far, and they withdrew further support—leaving a gap for another daring philanthropist to enter the Chicago opera scene and reinvigorate the art form.

TOP The Lyric Opera of Chicago’s visually

stunning 2010 production of Giuseppe Verdi’s

Macbeth (1847) at the Civic Opera House.

C h i c ag o ’ s P r i m a “ D i r e c ta ”

Mary Garden, the feisty Scottish soprano who astonished Chicago audiences with her sensual Salome (1905) in 1910, became infamous as the head of the opera company in 1921. In less than a year her extravagant program-ming and mismanagement netted the fl edgling Chicago Opera company a US$1 million loss. She resigned, but continued on as prima donna. Long-suffering philanthropist Harold F. McCormick picked up the tab one last time. His wife, John D. Rockefeller’s daughter Edith, was in Switzerland studying with psychologist Carl Jung, so Harold moved his attentions and fi nancial interests to Polish soprano Ganna Walska, whom he later married.


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ABOVE In a colorful burst of

nationalistic pride, the dome of

the Teatro Amazonas features

the hues of the fl ag of Brazil,

which was adopted in 1889.

BELOW Domenico de Angelis’s

gorgeous ceiling painting in

the auditorium is illuminated

by an Italian glass chandelier.


Inauguration December 31, 1896

Opening Performance Excerpts from various

Italian operas

Renovations 1929, 1965, 1974, 1987–90

Architects Enrico Mazzolani and Domenico de Angelis

Seating 701

Teatro AmazonasMANAUS

he geographic location of the Teatro Amazonas has impacted on its interior

and exterior appearance since its initial designs were created. The most visible case in point is its Art Deco-inspired dome, which is coated with over 36,000 orna-mented polychrome Alsatian tiles in the colors of Brazil’s national fl ag (blue, green, and yellow). An early example of eclecticism, the dome clashes with the Neoclassical style of the facade, which is best exemplifi ed by the Classical tympanum and Ionic columns. The theater was severely criticized for this aesthetic incongruity at the time of its inauguration. Never theless, today the dome is considered one of the theater’s most popular architectural features.

Art of the AmazonasThe distinctive painted stage curtain is another of the many delightful highlights of the Teatro Amazonas. Entitled Meeting of the Waters, it was created by Brazilian scenographer Crispim do Amaral and allegorically depicts the junction of the Negro and Solimões rivers, where the city of Manaus is located. The theater itself is centrally positioned on a large square near the confl uence of these two rivers. The striking

foyer boasts one of the richest collections of decor -ative paintings in Brazil. Its panels were painted by Italian artist Domenico de Angelis and contain Amazonian rain forest motifs. The colorfully vibrant auditorium, built in a traditional Italian horseshoe shape, contains multiple ground-fl oor columns above which cartouches with names from opera, drama, and poetry are displayed. The ceiling was also painted by de Angelis and is entitled Glorifi cation of the Arts in Amazonia.

While its unique surroundings inspired much of the Teatro Amazonas’s imaginative decor, the relentlessly humid environment and geographic remoteness of Manaus have also caused a multi-tude of problems with the theater’s structural maintenance. The wood originally used for its construction, which was sourced from the surround- ing Amazon rain forest, has been a problematic material since building of the theater began in the 1880s, and it took decades to eliminate structural threats posed by termites.

At the heart of the planet’s largest tropical rain forest and in a

city nicknamed “the Paris of the tropics” stands one of the most

remarkable opera houses in the Americas, the Teatro Amazonas

of Manaus. Its colorful history and design, appealing in their

own right, are also a refl ection of Europe’s infl uence on Brazil

and Latin America’s artistic and architectural landscape.



GGFOH_306_323_LatinAmerica_b3_.indd 314 15/08/2012 3:28 PM

PMS 8641 C



ABOVE In a colorful burst of

nationalistic pride, the dome of

the Teatro Amazonas features

the hues of the fl ag of Brazil,

which was adopted in 1889.

BELOW Domenico de Angelis’s

gorgeous ceiling painting in

the auditorium is illuminated

by an Italian glass chandelier.


Inauguration December 31, 1896

Opening Performance Excerpts from various

Italian operas

Renovations 1929, 1965, 1974, 1987–90

Architects Enrico Mazzolani and Domenico de Angelis

Seating 701

Teatro AmazonasMANAUS

he geographic location of the Teatro Amazonas has impacted on its interior

and exterior appearance since its initial designs were created. The most visible case in point is its Art Deco-inspired dome, which is coated with over 36,000 orna-mented polychrome Alsatian tiles in the colors of Brazil’s national fl ag (blue, green, and yellow). An early example of eclecticism, the dome clashes with the Neoclassical style of the facade, which is best exemplifi ed by the Classical tympanum and Ionic columns. The theater was severely criticized for this aesthetic incongruity at the time of its inauguration. Never theless, today the dome is considered one of the theater’s most popular architectural features.

Art of the AmazonasThe distinctive painted stage curtain is another of the many delightful highlights of the Teatro Amazonas. Entitled Meeting of the Waters, it was created by Brazilian scenographer Crispim do Amaral and allegorically depicts the junction of the Negro and Solimões rivers, where the city of Manaus is located. The theater itself is centrally positioned on a large square near the confl uence of these two rivers. The striking

foyer boasts one of the richest collections of decor -ative paintings in Brazil. Its panels were painted by Italian artist Domenico de Angelis and contain Amazonian rain forest motifs. The colorfully vibrant auditorium, built in a traditional Italian horseshoe shape, contains multiple ground-fl oor columns above which cartouches with names from opera, drama, and poetry are displayed. The ceiling was also painted by de Angelis and is entitled Glorifi cation of the Arts in Amazonia.

While its unique surroundings inspired much of the Teatro Amazonas’s imaginative decor, the relentlessly humid environment and geographic remoteness of Manaus have also caused a multi-tude of problems with the theater’s structural maintenance. The wood originally used for its construction, which was sourced from the surround- ing Amazon rain forest, has been a problematic material since building of the theater began in the 1880s, and it took decades to eliminate structural threats posed by termites.

At the heart of the planet’s largest tropical rain forest and in a

city nicknamed “the Paris of the tropics” stands one of the most

remarkable opera houses in the Americas, the Teatro Amazonas

of Manaus. Its colorful history and design, appealing in their

own right, are also a refl ection of Europe’s infl uence on Brazil

and Latin America’s artistic and architectural landscape.




PMS 8641 C



ABOVE A 2008 production

at the Teatro Amazonas of

Ça Ira (2005), an opera

by Roger Waters from the

English rock band Pink Floyd.

Rubber OriginsThe Teatro Amazonas owes its existence to the “rubber boom” in Brazil during the last quarter of the nineteenth century, and the consequent drive to increase the cultural standards of Brazil’s towns and cities. Manaus was the center of this phenomenon and enjoyed the highest per capita income in Brazil at the time. Its wealthy rubber barons saw the need for a sophisticated venue in which to parade their affl uence and demon-strate their loftier (that is, European) artistic tastes.

Accordingly, in 1881 a group of these industrialists lobbied the State government for “a temple sacred to opera” modeled after the great European houses. Fund-ing was approved the following year but construction did not begin until 1884, with a building designed by Italians Enrico Mazzolani and Domenico de Angelis. Corruption and disagreements led to a cessation of work between 1885 and 1892, after which construction was resumed and the exterior fi nished in late 1896. The Teatro Amazonas was inaugurated on December 31, 1896, with a concert featuring highlights from Italian operas. The fi rst complete opera, Amilcare Ponchielli’s La Gioconda (1876), was performed one week later.

Despite this auspicious beginning, political insta-bility, Manaus’s geographic isolation, and the decline of the rubber trade during the second decade of the twentieth century led to a lengthy period of operatic inactivity at the Teatro Amazonas. During this time the theater was used alternatively for political functions, carnival balls, fi lm festivals, and even an improvised

indoor football pitch at one point. The main artistic highlight during this era was the visit in 1912 of future celebrated Brazilian composer Heitor Villa-Lobos.

The theater’s artistic life underwent a revival in 1965 when it was declared a “historic site” by the Brazilian government. After an extensive, three-year renovation, it reopened in 1990 with a gala featuring legendary tenor Plácido Domingo. Today, the Teatro Amazonas is home to the Festival Amazonas de Ópera and regularly presents opera, dance, and theater performances by national and international artists.

TOP The foyer of the Teatro

Amazonas features a large

number of the 198 chandeliers

found throughout the theater.

Fitzcarraldo andthe Teatro AmazonasThe Teatro Amazonas is best known in popular culture for its presence in Werner Herzog’s 1982 fi lm Fitzcarraldo, which tells the story of an aspiring rubber baron who dreams of building “the Grand Opera in the jungle” and inaugurating it with a performance by superstar tenor Enrico Caruso. It is an astute depiction of rubber-boom wealth and cultural preten-tiousness in turn-of-the-century Manaus, even if Herzog bends history to suit his fi lmic needs (Caruso never sang at the Teatro Amazonas). During the fi lm’s opening minutes, the Teatro Amazonas’s facade, ornate interior, and colorful curtain each enjoy their moment in the spotlight.



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GGFOH_306_323_LatinAmerica_b3_.indd 322 28/07/2012 9:14 AM


K5

BELOW Specialized acoustic

equipment was lowered

during the renovation of the

Opéra Comique in Paris.

W

THEATER ACOUSTICS

The sound qualities of opera theaters around the world form a popular and sometimes

controversial topic of discussion among audiences, conductors, performers, and acousticians

alike. Evaluating the acoustic merits of vastly different performance venues for opera is

a detailed pursuit involving a fascinating combination of art, science, and history.

ithin a performing arts context, acoustics can be described as the characteristics that determine the integrity and quality

of sounds produced within a performance venue. Several factors infl uence a theater’s acoustics, including its architecture (especially its stage and auditorium design), size, and the materials from which it is made. An opera theater is generally said to have good acoustics when a suitable balance of volume between the singers’ voices and the orchestra

is easily established without compromising the musical requirements of the piece. Also, from the instrumental perspective, the theater must allow the orchestra’s soft pianissimo passages to be clearly heard but also possess enough reverberation time for loud fortissimo climaxes to impact powerfully.

Reverberation is an important concept in theater acoustics and relates to the continuation of an instru-mental or vocal sound after the instrument or voice has ceased to produce it. Reverberation time is



PMS 8641 C




K5

BELOW Specialized acoustic

equipment was lowered

during the renovation of the

Opéra Comique in Paris.

W

THEATER ACOUSTICS

The sound qualities of opera theaters around the world form a popular and sometimes

controversial topic of discussion among audiences, conductors, performers, and acousticians

alike. Evaluating the acoustic merits of vastly different performance venues for opera is

a detailed pursuit involving a fascinating combination of art, science, and history.

ithin a performing arts context, acoustics can be described as the characteristics that determine the integrity and quality

of sounds produced within a performance venue. Several factors infl uence a theater’s acoustics, including its architecture (especially its stage and auditorium design), size, and the materials from which it is made. An opera theater is generally said to have good acoustics when a suitable balance of volume between the singers’ voices and the orchestra

is easily established without compromising the musical requirements of the piece. Also, from the instrumental perspective, the theater must allow the orchestra’s soft pianissimo passages to be clearly heard but also possess enough reverberation time for loud fortissimo climaxes to impact powerfully.

Reverberation is an important concept in theater acoustics and relates to the continuation of an instru-mental or vocal sound after the instrument or voice has ceased to produce it. Reverberation time is


GGFOH_306_323_LatinAmerica_b3_.indd 322 28/07/2012 9:13 AM PMS 8641 C



323L AT I N A M E R I C A : S P L E N D I D I S O L AT I O N

K5

ABOVE Cuvilliés-Theater in

Munich, Germany, has a

compact auditorium that is

well-suited to the works of

Baroque opera composers.

LEFT The auditorium of the

Teatro Colón in Buenos Aires,

Argentina, is regarded as the

world’s most acoustically

perfect space for opera.

therefore the amount of time that elapses before a loud sound becomes silent after it has stopped being produced. A theater’s reverberation time is signifi cant in opera because a low level (e.g., the Wiener Staatsoper in Vienna) will allow the sung or spoken words to be heard more clearly from the auditorium, while a higher level (e.g., New York City’s Metropolitan Opera House) might reduce this clarity but provide greater fullness of tone to the voices and orchestra. It is also important because it helps determine the repertoire most suitable to be performed in a particular theater.

Different Music for Different AcousticsBecause some theaters are better suited to the performance of particular types of works, numer-ous composers have written a work with a specifi c theater (or type of theater) in mind for its premiere, and have therefore tailored the work’s composition to the acoustical characteristics of that space.

Music from the Baroque period, which dates roughly from 1600 to 1750, was performed mainly in private aristocratic courts or small theaters (except for some Baroque sacred music, which was composed for performance in churches). Baroque operas by George Frideric Handel, Antonio Vivaldi, and others were characterized, among other things, by orchestral and vocal counterpoints requiring clear articulation. Small and intimate venues, such as Munich’s Cuvilliés-Theater, with a low reverberation time (under 1.5 seconds) provide suitable acoustics for performing these works.

With the classical period (approximately 1750 to 1820) and Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart’s oper-atic innovations, melody and harmony developed independently. Orchestral writing became more complex, requiring bigger theaters that provided greater fullness of tone and a higher reverberation time, such as Dresden’s Semperoper (reverberation

time 1.6 seconds). Operas from the Romantic period (roughly 1820 to 1920) continued along this path, with composers such as Giuseppe Verdi and Richard Wagner elevating the dramatic role of the orchestra to almost that of a character. Acoustically suitable venues for these works generally have a large stage, orchestra pit, and auditorium, and a reverberation time of around 1.8 seconds.

New York City’s new Metropolitan Opera House—with its huge auditorium,

large uncovered orchestra pit, and towering stage—is especially suited to the works of Verdi, Wagner, Giacomo Puccini, and Richard Strauss, which require powerful orchestras and rich, resonant voices. Conversely, it is relatively less suited to Baroque opera, as much of the orchestral color and vocal detail can be lost in the large space.

The Finest SoundsIn a recent survey of 21 prominent opera conductors from around the world, the fi ve opera houses that were considered to have the best acoustical quality were, in order, the Teatro Colón in Buenos Aires, Dresden’s Semperoper, Milan’s Teatro alla Scala (La Scala), the New National Theatre in Tokyo, and the Teatro di San Carlo in Naples. As part of the same study, acoustical data was compiled for 23 opera houses across the globe, and the most suitable venue for opera was deemed to be the Teatro Colón, followed closely by the Semperoper. Interestingly, despite great differences in design, size, and capacity, both these opera houses are renowned worldwide for being suitable for the per formance of a wide variety of repertoire, from Baroque to contemporary works.

Even so, evaluating the acoustical quality of theaters can be a highly subjective endeavor, as some audiences and performers perceive sounds differently to others. Furthermore, different listeners seek different things from music—for example, some people value clarity over richness, while others value texture over brilliance of sound. It is for this reason that theater acoustics will always provide a source of lively discussion and debate for lovers of the performing arts.

ABOVE Operahuset in Oslo,

Norway, has curved wooden

balcony fronts that help with

sound diffusion.



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GGFOH_324_341_AsiaAus_b1_.indd 324 30/06/2012 10:32 AM

Asia and Australia— Tra d i t i o n a n d I n n o v a t i o n —

European colonists brought their operatic traditions to Asia and Australia, although opera

only began to emerge as a theatrical force across the region in the very early twentieth century.

By the start of the twenty-fi rst century, opera houses were built, under construction, or planned

for nearly every major city in the region. Asia and Australia had fallen under opera’s spell.


1st Proof Title: Great, Grand & Famous Opera Houses : 29953GGFOH_324_341_AsiaAus_b1_.indd 324 30/06/2012 10:32 AM

PMS 8641 C


GGFOH_324_341_AsiaAus_b1_.indd 324 30/06/2012 10:32 AM

Asia and Australia— Tra d i t i o n a n d I n n o v a t i o n —

European colonists brought their operatic traditions to Asia and Australia, although opera

only began to emerge as a theatrical force across the region in the very early twentieth century.

By the start of the twenty-fi rst century, opera houses were built, under construction, or planned

for nearly every major city in the region. Asia and Australia had fallen under opera’s spell.


1st Proof Title: Great, Grand & Famous Opera Houses : 29953GGFOH_324_341_AsiaAus_b1_.indd 324 30/06/2012 10:32 AM PMS

8641 C Job No: PL0612-92/RUSHAN


325A S I A A N D A U S T R A L I A : T R A D I T I O N A N D I N N O VAT I O N

OPPOSITE PAGE Indigenous

Asian art forms such as Beijing

Opera often share the same

theaters as Western opera.

ABOVE The Saigon Opera

House (also known as the Ho

Chi Minh Municipal Theatre)

was built in 1897.

An Australian stamp released in 2004 celebrates

the life and career of Dame Joan Sutherland.

O pera was fi rst introduced to Asia by Europ -eans during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. The economic and political

dominance of Asia by European powers in the nineteenth century did not impact the popularity of native theatrical traditions among the indigenous populations, and opera was considered foreign and strange. Early operatic performances in Asia were performed for the benefi t of the European elite rather than for the larger native population.

Opera in AsiaThe fi rst opera performances in Asia were by touring European troupes hired by local entrepreneurs and the colonial authorities. The venue was often a large room in a mansion or a café, where a small group of musicians would play the score with reduced orche -strations, costumes would be minimal, and there was little or no set. Often the works performed would be comedies and operettas in the language of the colonists. These early ventures whet the musical appetite of the colonists, and soon local productions were emerging in small existing theaters that were originally built for native theatrical traditions such as Beijing Opera.

It wasn’t long before actual opera houses were being constructed. Theaters where one could enjoy opera and drama were seen as symbols of progress and civilization, and soon many colonial cities in Asia were building a civic theater for the public good. By the early twentieth century, theaters had been built in Bombay (now Mumbai), Hanoi, Macau, Manila, Saigon (now Ho Chi Minh City), Singapore, and many other cities throughout colonial Asia. These theaters refl ected the cultural heritage and theatrical traditions of the colonial European powers. There were some allowances given to the differing weather conditions, such as large ceiling fans and spacious wraparound balconies, but to a large extent a night at the opera in Hanoi or Singapore would have been the same as seeing an opera in Lyon or Brighton.

With the end of World War II, the European colonies in Asia began to gain independence. The Asian economic boom of the 1950s meant that Asian cities were becoming permanent fi xtures on the tours of major opera companies and big opera stars. Their visits increased local awareness of the art form, and audience numbers grew. Soon Asian operas and Asian opera singers emerged. Today Asian opera companies tour to Europe, to show off their unique productions and prowess. In 2011, Opera Siam’s production of Giacomo Puccini’s Tosca (1900) toured to London. The production transported the setting from

Napoleonic Rome to French colonial Southeast Asia. Opera in Asia has come full circle.

Opera in the AntipodesOpera appeared in the Australian colonies in the early nineteenth century. English works, such as those by W. S. Gilbert and Arthur Sullivan, were the most popular. The Gold Rushes of the mid-nineteenth century brought economic success. Large theaters began appearing in the 1850s, and soon entrepreneurs began to bring opera companies on tour to the Australian colonies for extended engagements. The theaters used for these tours were rarely equipped for the demands of grand opera, but the performances were well supported by the public.

Touring companies, often led by stars such as Nellie Melba and Joan Sutherland, continued to supply operatic performances in Australia well into the early twentieth century, together with some small local companies. To celebrate the bicentenary in 1956 of the birth of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, the Australian Opera Company was founded; four of Mozart’s operas were performed in all the Australian capital cities in its debut season. This company grew to become today’s Opera Australia. With the completion of the Sydney Opera House in 1973, opera gained national attention when the Australian premiere of Sergei Prokofi ev’s War and Peace (1946) was televised across the country as part of the opera house’s opening celebrations.

Operatic Artists of Asia and AustraliaThroughout the history of opera in Asia and Australia, many superb local artists have risen to worldwide fame. Dame Nellie Melba, Dame Joan Sutherland, Dame Kiri Te Kanawa, and Sumi Jo ruled the opera stages of the world during their glittering careers. Asian and Australian opera directors have taken new and unique visions of opera around the world. Ichikawa Ennosuke III, whose Kabuki-styled opera productions have been very popular in Europe, is one of the best Kabuki actors of his time. Julie Taymor, while an American, studied the theatrical traditions of Asia and has used them as inspiration to create stunning operatic productions across the globe.



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