Page 100 - Weiss, Jernej, ur. 2019. Vloga nacionalnih opernih gledališč v 20. in 21. stoletju - The Role of National Opera Houses in the 20th and 21st Centuries. Koper/Ljubljana: Založba Univerze na Primorskem in Festival Ljubljana. Studia musicologica Labacensia, 3
P. 100
vloga nacionalnih opernih gledališč v 20. in 21. stoletju
Venues and Companies
As Italian and French operas by composers such as Rossini, Verdi or
Gounod (but also operas by Irish composers such as Wallace and Balfe, as
well as the Gilbert & Sullivan comic operas) became regular visitors to Irish
cities, larger, more suitable theatres began to be built. These include the
Cork Opera House (1877), the “Grand Opera House” in Belfast (1895), but
also “Theatres Royal” in Limerick, Waterford, Wexford and Dublin. Still,
all these venues were only witnessing opera on their stages for a few days or
weeks per year (for example, in 1875 Dublin’s Theatre Royal played 13 operas
for a total of 18 days).19 Alongside opera the theatres also presented plays,
concerts, ballets, variety performances and other types of entertainment.
These theatres could be quite large; after 1934 Dublin’s (third) Theatre Roy-
al offered space for 4,000 people – almost twice as many as today’s largest
Irish theatre. Before we move on to indigenous opera companies, a few oth-
er venues have to be mentioned: In 2008, a purpose-built opera house with
750 seats opened in the city of Wexford. It is associated with the “Wexford
Festival Opera”, a festival which has been running in that city since 1951. Its
goal is to present operas mainly from the nineteenth and early twentieth
centuries that never entered the canon, did it only locally, or have been for-
gotten altogether (some of them by well-known composers like Donizetti
or Rimsky-Korsakov). Under the guidance of David Agler, its current artis-
tic director, it was recently expanded to also include contemporary operas
that have as yet received few performances at least in Europe; examples of
these are John Corregliano’s Ghosts of Versailles, Jake Heggie’s Dead Man
Walking or André Previn’s A Streetcar Named Desire.
Currently the Wexford Festival runs for just over two weeks every
year; during its best days it stretched over three weeks. It is certainly Ire-
land’s most important contribution to operatic life on the world stage, yet
despite its international prestige it has to be said that building an opera
house (at a cost of c. €35m) in a town of 20,000 people for an event that lasts
2-3 weeks was one of the last follies of the Celtic tiger (as the Irish boom that
ended in the economic collapse of 2008 was called); for most of the year it
stands idle, apart from hosting the occasional concert, touring opera, play
or other performance. In 2014 it was rebranded as Ireland’s “National Op-
19 Maria McHale, “Theatre Royal, Dublin”, in Encyclopaedia of Music in Ireland, eds
Harry White and Barra Boydell (Dublin: UCD Press, 2013), 982-983: 982.
98
Venues and Companies
As Italian and French operas by composers such as Rossini, Verdi or
Gounod (but also operas by Irish composers such as Wallace and Balfe, as
well as the Gilbert & Sullivan comic operas) became regular visitors to Irish
cities, larger, more suitable theatres began to be built. These include the
Cork Opera House (1877), the “Grand Opera House” in Belfast (1895), but
also “Theatres Royal” in Limerick, Waterford, Wexford and Dublin. Still,
all these venues were only witnessing opera on their stages for a few days or
weeks per year (for example, in 1875 Dublin’s Theatre Royal played 13 operas
for a total of 18 days).19 Alongside opera the theatres also presented plays,
concerts, ballets, variety performances and other types of entertainment.
These theatres could be quite large; after 1934 Dublin’s (third) Theatre Roy-
al offered space for 4,000 people – almost twice as many as today’s largest
Irish theatre. Before we move on to indigenous opera companies, a few oth-
er venues have to be mentioned: In 2008, a purpose-built opera house with
750 seats opened in the city of Wexford. It is associated with the “Wexford
Festival Opera”, a festival which has been running in that city since 1951. Its
goal is to present operas mainly from the nineteenth and early twentieth
centuries that never entered the canon, did it only locally, or have been for-
gotten altogether (some of them by well-known composers like Donizetti
or Rimsky-Korsakov). Under the guidance of David Agler, its current artis-
tic director, it was recently expanded to also include contemporary operas
that have as yet received few performances at least in Europe; examples of
these are John Corregliano’s Ghosts of Versailles, Jake Heggie’s Dead Man
Walking or André Previn’s A Streetcar Named Desire.
Currently the Wexford Festival runs for just over two weeks every
year; during its best days it stretched over three weeks. It is certainly Ire-
land’s most important contribution to operatic life on the world stage, yet
despite its international prestige it has to be said that building an opera
house (at a cost of c. €35m) in a town of 20,000 people for an event that lasts
2-3 weeks was one of the last follies of the Celtic tiger (as the Irish boom that
ended in the economic collapse of 2008 was called); for most of the year it
stands idle, apart from hosting the occasional concert, touring opera, play
or other performance. In 2014 it was rebranded as Ireland’s “National Op-
19 Maria McHale, “Theatre Royal, Dublin”, in Encyclopaedia of Music in Ireland, eds
Harry White and Barra Boydell (Dublin: UCD Press, 2013), 982-983: 982.
98
