Great, Grand & Famous
Opera Houses …where art and drama meet
Great, Grand & Famous
Opera Houses ‌ where art and drama meet
With a Foreword by
Dame Kiri Te Kanawa
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, Australia PO Box 623, Crows Nest NSW 1585, Australia Telephone: +61 2 9437 0438 Facsimile: +61 2 9437 0288 Email: admin@arbonpublishing.com or visit www.arbonpublishing.com
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 Managing Director
This publication and arrangement © Arbon Publishing Pty Ltd, 2012 Text © Arbon Publishing Pty Ltd, 2012 Photography 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 entry Author: 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 Pages Page 1: Sculpture at the Teatro La Fenice in Venice. Page 2: Ceiling of Markgräfliches 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.
C ONTRIBUTORS Moffatt Oxenbould AM has contributed to the development
Melissa Lesnie studied musicology at the Sydney
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.
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 five years.
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 fields of music, architecture, and art. She was 14 when she saw her first opera, and it was love at first 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 aficionado. 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 fluent in Japanese and holds a Bachelor of Arts in Japanese from Australia’s Griffith University.
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 influenced 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.
F OREWORD
I
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 first 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 first 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 magnificently 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 first 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 first 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 first 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
c
o
Introduction 12
Crucibles of a New Art 18 ITALY: Setting the Standard 20
Teatro alla Scala, Milan 24 Arena di Verona, Verona 30 Teatro La Fenice, Venice 32 Parts of an Opera House 36 Teatro Regio di Parma, Parma 38 Teatro Comunale di Bologna, Bologna 42 Teatro Rossini, Pesaro 44 Opera Singers 46 Teatro dell’Opera di Roma, Rome 48 Teatro di San Carlo, Naples 52 Impresarios 58 Teatro Massimo, Palermo 60 Teatro Massimo Bellini, Catania 64 FRANCE: Pinnacles of Style 66
Palais Garnier, Paris 70 Opéra Comique, Paris 76 High and Low 78 Opéra Bastille, Paris 80 Opéra Royal de Versailles, Versailles 82 Opéra-Théâtre de Metz Métropole, Metz 86 Grand-Théâtre de Bordeaux, Bordeaux 88 Training as an Opera Singer 92 Théâtre du Capitole, Toulouse 94 Opéra Municipal de Marseille, Marseille 96
n
t
UNITED KINGDOM: Finding the Right Stage 98
Royal Opera House, London 102 Stars of the Opera 108 Coliseum Theatre, London 110 Glyndebourne Opera House, Glyndebourne 114 Opera Festivals 118 Wales Millennium Centre, Cardiff 120 GERMANY: High Drama 122
Staatsoper Unter den Linden, Berlin 126 Komische Oper, Berlin 132 Deutsche Oper, Berlin 134 Art of the Opera 138 Hamburgische Staatsoper, Hamburg 140 Semperoper, Dresden 144 Markgräfliches Opernhaus, Bayreuth 148 Bayreuther Festspielhaus, Bayreuth 150 The “Complete Art” of Wagner 156 Cuvilliés-Theater, Munich 158 Nationaltheater München, Munich 160 In the Pit 164
Where Tradition Flourished 166 NORTHERN EUROPE: Standing Apart 168
Operahuset, Oslo 170 Drottningholms Slottsteater, Stockholm 172 Stage Machinery 176 Kungliga Operan, Stockholm 178 Operaen, Copenhagen 182 Het Muziektheater, Amsterdam 186 Théâtre Royal de la Monnaie, Brussels 190 Leading Lights 194
e
n
CENTRAL EUROPE: Cultural Crossroads 196
Grand Théâtre de Genève, Geneva 200 Opernhaus Zürich, Zurich 204 Theater an der Wien, Vienna 206 The Libretto 208 Wiener Staatsoper, Vienna 210 Volksoper Wien, Vienna 216 Grosses Festspielhaus, Salzburg 218 The Cult of the Conductor 222 SOUTHERN EUROPE: In a New Light 224
Teatro Nacional de São Carlos, Lisbon 226 Teatro Real, Madrid 228 Teatro de la Zarzuela, Madrid 230 Costumes and Makeup 232 Gran Teatre del Liceu, Barcelona 234 Palau de les Arts Reina Sofía, Valencia 238 Opéra de Monte-Carlo, Monte Carlo 242 Royal Patrons 246 EASTERN EUROPE: Opulence on Show 248
National Theatre, Belgrade 250 Národní Divadlo, Prague 252 Magyar Állami Operaház, Budapest 256 From the Ashes 258 Teatr Wielki, Warsaw 260 Bolshoi Theatre, Moscow 262 Mariinsky Theatre, St. Petersburg 266 Opera Houses in World War II 270
t
s
New Frontiers 272 UNITED STATES: Democracy and Privilege 274
Metropolitan Opera House, New York City 278 Stage Direction 284 John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, Washington, DC 286 Civic Opera House, Chicago 290 War Memorial Opera House, San Francisco 294 Dorothy Chandler Pavilion, Los Angeles 298 Opera and the Movies 300 The Crosby Theatre, Santa Fe 302 Wortham Theater Center, Houston 304 LATIN AMERICA: Splendid Isolation 306
Palacio de Bellas Artes, Mexico City 308 Audience Responses 312 Teatro Amazonas, Manaus 314 Teatro Municipal de Santiago, Santiago 316 Teatro Colón, Buenos Aires 318 Theater Acoustics 322 ASIA AND AUSTRALIA: Tradition and Innovation 324
Hanoi Opera House, Hanoi 326 National Centre for the Performing Arts, Beijing 328 Opera and Vernacular Styles 332 Sydney Opera House, Sydney 334 Famous Modern Stagings 340
Glossary 342 Bibliography 343 Index 346 Picture Credits 352
crucibles of a new art 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.
52
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Teatro
DI
San Carlo
NAPLES
Visiting the newly renovated Teatro di San Carlo in 1817, the French writer Stendhal was astounded by its magnificence. “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.
ABOVE
The facade of the
Teatro di San Carlo features its full and official name inscribed above the entrance. 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.
T
hough it no longer rivals La the narrow streets for an Scala as a household name appropriately grand entrance. Year of Construction 1737 nor has the contemporary Legend has it that a near Inauguration cachet of, say, Teatro La Fenice, accident, when the king’s horses November 4, 1737 Teatro di San Carlo is undoubtedly stumbled on uneven paving Opening Performance one of the most beautiful opera stones and the royal carriage Achille in Sciro (1737) by Domenico Sarro houses in the world. Moreover, it almost overturned, was the Renovations 1816 (rebuilt after is Italy’s oldest opera house and last straw for Charles VII. fire), 2009 (major renovation) the oldest working opera house In 1736, he had the Teatro Architects in Europe, having presented perSan Bartolomeo razed to the Giovanni Antonio Medrano formances continuously since its ground, and commissioned and Angelo Carasale (1737), Antonio Niccolini (1816) foundation, with just a few brief architects Giovanni Antonio Seating 3,285 interruptions. To visit the Teatro Medrano and Angelo Carasale di San Carlo today is thus to to construct a new opera house reenter the glamorous world of north of the new Palazzo Reale the theater’s—and Naples’s—early nineteenth-century (Royal Palace). It was a tall order, for Charles VII operatic heyday, especially on a performance night, asked for “the largest [opera house] in Europe and in when music and spectacle work their magic and the as little time as possible,” but Medrano and Carasale glorious setting is further enlivened by the inimitable obliged, completing the building within eight months style and brio of the knowledgeable Neapolitan public, and ten days, in time for the theater to open on the ever primed to proclaim fervent appreciation or king’s name day, November 4, the day of St. Charles— haughty and withering disdain. San Carlo. This achievement won both men much welcome royal favor, and Carasale an enviable nickname for the wonders he had worked in the A Miraculous Construction sumptuous interior: “Man of Miracles.” Teatro 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 Musical Capital of Europe in 1734, Charles not only decided to settle in the city With the king, his courtiers, and the cream of Neapolitan society in attendance, the Real Teatro di San but also began reshaping it in a style befitting an imperial capital. An enthusiastic artist and connoisseur Carlo (Royal Theatre of St. Charles) commenced its remarkable history with a performance of Domenico of music, Charles regularly attended operas at the Sarro’s Achille in Sciro (1737), featuring a libretto by city’s Teatro San Bartolomeo but became dissatisfied with its size, facilities, and, especially, the inadequate Metastasio. True to the convention of the day, Achille was played by a woman, Vittoria Tesi; also starring access for royal carriages—there was little room in
82
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Opéra Royal
DE
Versailles
VERSAILLES
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. A Permanent Theater ouis XIV moved his court at Long Last and the seat of his governYears of Construction Gabriel decided to use the 1685 ment to the Château de 1763–70 design of Jules Hardouin Mansart Versailles in 1682, but the palace Inauguration May 16, 1770 and Gaspare Vigarani that had had no permanent theater capable Opening Performance been abandoned during the of hosting operatic performances. Persée (1682) by Jean-Baptiste Lully War of the Spanish Succession A theater was begun in 1685 but (1701–14). The theater was an soon abandoned, and perforRenovations 1871 (converted to house the National Assembly), oval shape with Corinthian mances of important operas 1952–57, 2007–9 columns and a pair of double such as Jean-Baptiste Lully’s Architects Ange-Jacques columns to mark the proscenAlceste (1674) and Jean-Philippe Gabriel (1763–70), Edmond de Joly (1871), André Japy (1952–57), ium. There were three tiers of Rameau’s La princesse de Navarre Frédéric Didier (2007–9) boxes on each side of the stage, (1745) took place in a variety Seating 712 enclosed by another pair of of spaces. These ranged from columns, and then—in a break outdoor and temporary theaters from the stacked tiers of Italian to the Grande Écurie, the covered theaters—two balconies formed a ring in the rear riding arena. There was a small theater, the Salle half of the theater. The theater was built entirely of de la Comédie, completed in 1681, which only held wood, which was painted to represent marble and 250 spectators, but this was used mainly for plays. This theater was destroyed in 1769 to provide access stone; this afforded the theater excellent acoustics. to the gardens. Another theater was built in 1688 but destroyed in 1703. Under Louis XV’s mistress, Madame de Pompadour, 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 filled the dramatic roles, took part in the dances, and played in the orchestra during performances 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.
L ABOVE
Louis Jean-Jacques
Durameau’s plafond (ceiling) painting gives the illusion of looking up to the heavens. BELOW
Like his father before
him, Ange-Jacques Gabriel was the chief architect for the King of France.
FRANCE : PINNACLES
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 canvas was painted by Louis Jean-Jacques Durameau to depict Apollo preparing the crowns for the illustrious 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 Outcry Productions at the theater were hugely expensive— just one performance could use up to 10,000 candles. Outrage at the cost of early performances eventually 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 reflected 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.
LEFT
A 1674 staging of Alceste (1674)
by Jean-Baptiste Lully, given in the Marble Courtyard of the Château de Versailles. RIGHT
Boxes at the Opéra Royal de
Versailles feature ornate lattice screens that can be closed against prying eyes.
OF
STYLE
83
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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Closure, Neglect, and Conversion
ABOVE
A gorgeous detail from
one of the many decorative paintings found in the Opéra Royal de Versailles.
BELOW
This 1850 illustration
depicts the view from the stage during a performance at the Opéra Royal de Versailles.
The theater hosted performances by the companies from the Opéra, the ComédieFrançaise, and the ComédieItalienne, but also held balls and banquets, with a removable floor 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 establishment 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 fixtures
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 culmination of the festivities to welcome the English queen and her consort. Some 1,200 guests attended, and there were dances and fireworks; 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 converted 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 first 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.
These meticulous restorations were acclaimed for their care and accuracy. It was only fitting 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
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.
aspects of the theater still untouched since 1957, and removed or updated unsafe features such as the fire curtain that had been in place since the 1950s. Following these renovations, regular performances were finally instituted at the theater.
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 first 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.
UNITED KINGDOM: FINDING
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 first 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 first totally sung English comic opera, Thomas and Sally, and in 1762 the first 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 Theatre The Queen’s Theatre survived until it was destroyed by a fire 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 financial difficulties 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 first 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 defection of orchestral players and singers to the Theatre Royal, Covent Garden, in 1847, the theater fell dark. The Covent Garden fire 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 fire.
THE
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OPPOSITE PAGE
99
The Pirates
of Penzance (1879) by W. S. Gilbert and Arthur Sullivan is a quintessential British comic opera. LEFT
At the age of 20, Henry
Purcell became the organist at Westminster Abbey; he was buried there after his death.
BELOW
An eighteenth-century
depiction of Act 3 from John Gay’s The Beggar’s Opera (1728) by William Hogarth.
170
W H E R E T RA D I T I O N F LO U R I S H E D
Operahuset OSLO
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.
ABOVE
The warmth of the
interior wood paneling is a striking contrast to the cool whiteness of the exterior. OPPOSITE PAGE, TOP
The
eye-catching stage curtain appears to be metallic, but is actually made from woven cotton, wool, and polyester. BELOW
Pedestrians and
skateboarders alike are encouraged to enjoy the views of Oslo from the roof of Operahuset.
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espite a small population alike. The roof design and the of around 5 million, the choice of Italian over Norwegian Years of Construction audience for opera and stone caused considerable con2003–8 ballet in Norway grew stronger troversy, but detailed testing Inauguration April 12, 2008 each year. In 1957, the state opera concluded that the visual and Opening Performance Orfeo (1607) company, Den Norske Opera, technical quality of the Italian by Claudio Monteverdi started performing in a 1,050-seat marble was superior to—as Renovations None converted cinema, but this was well as half the price of—local Architects always deemed an unsatisfactory stone. Norwegian sensitivities Snøhetta (company)—Tarald venue. The campaign for a purposewere allayed somewhat by the Lundevall, Martin Dietrichson, Ibrahim El Hayawan, Chandani built opera house began with the placement of local granite at the Ratnawira, Harriet Rikheim, Norwegian parliament accepting a water’s edge; the green stone and Marianne Sætre 1998 proposal to construct one as mimics the color of the water. Seating part of the redevelopment of the Within one year of its installation, Main House: 1,369; Second House: 400; Studio: 200 suburb of Bjørvika. An international over 20,000 people had climbed competition, which received over the roof. Within two years of 200 entries, was held in 2000, opening, the complex had with the company Snøhetta named as the winner. 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 Opera Under Foot marble to retain its whiteness. As the world’s first opera house that can be walked on, The glass facade, 50 ft (15 m) high in places, Operahuset’s canopy of about 33,000 slabs of Italian rises out of the marble-canopied exterior, allowing Carrara marble—covering 3.7 acres (1.5 hectares)— natural light into the foyer by day and the foyer light has become a major attraction for locals and visitors to illuminate the canopy by night. The specially
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 reconfigured to function as a concert hall. From the lenslike chandelier, which is suspended inside an oval reflector, 800 LED lights shine through 5,800 hand-cast crystals. The chandelier also acts as an acoustic reflector: inside it, the clusters of crystals increase in size toward the stage. This configuration 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.
The fly-tower and production workshops are clad in aluminum and, like every aspect of the exterior— from the light fixtures 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 offices, 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 general 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.
Den Norske Opera With the founding in 1950 of the Norske Operaselskap (Norwegian Opera
Room to Experiment The complex also has two smaller venues. The Second House has space to hold up to 55 musicians, and the flexible seating for 400 can be adapted from traditional raked rows to an in-the-round configuration. The other performance space, the Studio, can be used as a rehearsal room or as a performance space for an audience of 200 patrons.
Company), Norway at last had its first 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 first performance under its new name in 1959.
central europe — C u l t u ra l C ro s s ro 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 influences in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Central Europe rapidly became a funnel through which the art form spread eastward.
C E N T R A L E U RO P E : C U LT U R A L C RO S S RO A D S
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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 conflicts.
The HaBsburg Dynasty In 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 conflict 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 unification 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 Court Italian operas were staged in Austria as early as the seventeenth century, and their popularity was such that the Habsburg rulers invited several noted librettists 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 Kapellmeister (music director) in the 1750s, and it was in Vienna that he conducted his far-reaching reforms of the traditional 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 established himself as an independent composer in the city. He had already experienced significant success with Italianlanguage operas, notably La finta 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 traditional 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
197
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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Light and Dark
ABOVE
A late 1800s street
scene in Vienna shows the imposing facade of the new Wiener Staatsoper on the left.
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 afield.
D r i v i n g Fo rc e A key influence on Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart’s
During 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 influential, 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, brooding 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 floating on the edge of Lake Constance.
career and the development of opera in Central
French Influence
Europe was Emanuel Schikaneder. A singer and
Although, unlike Austria, it did not play a pioneering role in the development of opera, Switzerland has readily absorbed diverse musical influences 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 Frenchspeaking Switzerland, had no fewer than 18 theaters, many offering regular performances of opere buffe or opéras comiques, mainly from the French repertoire.
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 profitable 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 first 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 Inspiration Zurich became the leading cultural center in Germanspeaking 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 presented a number of works at the Aktientheater, inspiring wider interest in contemporary opera. Wagner’s five-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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C OSTUMES
AND
M AKEUP
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 florid as the singing. Modern costumes and makeup may be more subtle, but they are still an important part of the performance.
D
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.
ABOVE
Francesco Algarotti’s
Essay on Opera (1755) had a profound impact on many aspects of opera, including the choice of costumes. RIGHT
Modern stagings of
Giacomo Puccini’s Madama Butterfly (1904) often utilize costumes and makeup based on traditional Japanese styles.
Inspired by the standards of opera at the court of Frederick II, philosopher Francesco Algarotti published his Essay on Opera in 1755. One of the most important discussions about opera of the time and a major influence 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.
S O U T H E R N E U RO P E : I N
Modern Opera costumes In 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 jewelencrusted 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 performance 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 audience 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 costumes and sets. Designer Léon Bakst created colorful 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 moments In 1964, the combination of producer Franco Zeffirelli, soprano Maria Callas, and costume designer Marcel Escoffier 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,” Zeffirelli remarked. “Tosca was never like that.” In the twenty-first 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.”
A
LEFT
NEW LIGHT
233
Feodor Chaliapin aimed
for vivid expressiveness in his unique designs for his operatic costumes and makeup.
The magic of Makeup Robert 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 magnificent 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 transform 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.”
ABOVE
Maria Callas’s dress
from the 1964 Covent Garden production of Giacomo Puccini’s Tosca (1900).
Palau
DE LES
Arts Reina Sofía VALENCIA
ABOVE
Perfectly reflected in
the still waters, the Ciudad de las Artes y las Ciencias has a unique futuristic design.
The Palau de les Arts Reina Sofía opera and music venue was the final 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. Extraordinary he opera house and Architect multiple-venue music Years of Construction 1991–2005 Santiago Calatrava is a native complex was inaugurated Inauguration October 8, 2005 of Valencia, but with a worldwith a concert on October 8, Opening Performance wide reputation. He trained 2005, attended by its namesake Gala concert in Zurich and won his first Queen Sofía. The first opera Renovations major contract there to design performance—Fidelio (1805) 2006 (main stage rebuilt after a railway station for the city in by Ludwig van Beethoven— collapsing), 2007 (refitting of stage equipment after fl ooding) 1983. Calatrava holds the record occurred more than a year later, Architect for designing bridges, having on October 25, 2006. Santiago Calatrava built five in Spain (including Covered in trencadís (a Seating Sala Principal: 1,700; the interconnecting bridges of Catalan mosaic of small broken Auditorium: 1,500; Aula Magistral: 400; the City of Arts and Sciences) tiles), the building’s curved Teatre Martín i Soler: 380 and three others in France and exterior is reminiscent of a cruise Germany. Calatrava’s use of ship—an appropriate look as the irregular fragments of white tile building is surrounded by water. (trencadís) in the City of Arts and Sciences recalls the This is a remnant of the river Turia, which used to work of the great Spanish architect Antoni Gaudí, flow where the complex now stands before it was who used the same type of tiles. diverted after Valencia was flooded in 1956.
T
ABOVE
As well as a world-
renowned architect, Santiago Calatrava is a talented sculptor and painter.
S O U T H E R N E U RO P E : I N
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 unofficially 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 construction of an opera and concert venue in Tenerife in the Canary Islands.
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C l e v e r U s e o f S pa c 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 fit an entire extra auditorium for small-scale works into the available space and made it part of the final design. “This is my present to you,” he told the Palau’s artistic administrator, Helga Schmidt.
Striking, Ultra-modern Venue Like most major cities, Valencia had an opera house— the Teatro Principal—but financial difficulties 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 complex 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 performance 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 Auditorium, which features a cinema screen that is able to project performances from the hall below. The
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
ABOVE
The Sala Principal
features light panels in the ceiling, rather than a painting. TOP
The Palau de les Arts
Reina Sofía has a dynamic shape and fluid lines.
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Civic Opera House CHICAGO
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 office building is now home to the Lyric Opera of Chicago—one of America’s finest opera companies. The Auditorium ounded in 1833, Chicago Theatre grew rapidly once rail and Years of Construction Chicago’s finest architects, Louis water links to the East 1927–29 Sullivan and Dankmar Adler— Coast were secured. By 1865, as Inauguration November 4, 1929 who had worked on adapting the the American Civil War ended, exhibition center as a theater for the new city boasted a splendid Opening Performance Aida (1871) by Giuseppe Verdi Peck—were hired to design the 3,000-seat opera house built by Renovations 1955 (restoration), new theater, and were given an liquor tycoon Uranus Crosby. 1993–96 innovative brief. Like Crosby It was well supported by the Architects before him, but with even more growing influx of immigrants Graham, Anderson, Probst & democratic ambition, Peck from Italy and Germany seekWhite (1927–29); Skidmore, Owings & Merrill (1993–96) envisioned the concept of a tall, ing their fortunes in the New Seating 3,563 multipurpose building that would World, but opera proved a more house a giant theater. The money precarious business than whisky. made from the 400-room hotel Crosby fell foul of the law when and 130 offices that flanked the theater would assist he oversold a fraudulent raffle for the in paying for the cost of running the performances. opera house, and the building was later In the 1880s, the Auditorium Building was the razed to the ground during the Great largest and tallest building in the United States, Chicago Fire of 1871. at 17 stories high, and it housed the 4,200-seat Opera and big business had become Auditorium Theatre. The cost of the Auditorium common partners in the United States Building reached above US$3 million, and its already, and businessman Ferdinand Peck was the next entrepreneur to experiment fortresslike exterior conveyed the power of its purpose. A young architect named Frank Lloyd with opera in Chicago. He launched an opera festival that was housed in an enor- Wright worked on the project, and claimed that the theater was “The greatest room for music and mous exhibition center, and an estimated 10,000 people crowded in to hear soprano opera in the world—bar none.” Despite this glowing appraisal, the theater Adelina Patti performing in Giuseppe eventually faced years of neglect. Today it is owned by Verdi’s Aida (1871) in 1885. Peck Roosevelt University, and after a major renovation the ambitiously incorporated the Chicago theater is once again presenting ballets, musicals, and Auditorium Association in 1886 in order to develop community projects. It is a Neo-Romanesque structhe world’s largest and grandest theater, one that ture with ornate mosaics, gilding, and murals, but would rival the recently built Metropolitan Opera the acoustics are not ideal for live performances. House in New York City.
F ABOVE
Henry Hering’s
sculptured pediment above the entrance to the Civic Opera House features personifications of the arts. BELOW
A view of Uranus
Crosby’s opera house before it burned down during the Great Chicago Fire of 1871.
Chicago’s Own Opera Touring 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 first independent opera company. This company eventually became the first 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 Prokofiev. 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 deficit. 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.
C h i c a g 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 programming and mismanagement netted the fledgling 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 financial interests to Polish soprano Ganna Walska, whom he later married.
ABOVE
Between 2001 and 2003, a major
TOP
The Lyric Opera of Chicago’s visually
restoration of the Auditorium Theatre returned
stunning 2010 production of Giuseppe Verdi’s
it to its original colors and finishes.
Macbeth (1847) at the Civic Opera House.
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Teatro Amazonas MANAUS
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 reflection of Europe’s influence on Brazil and Latin America’s artistic and architectural landscape. Art of the Amazonas he geographic location of The distinctive painted stage the Teatro Amazonas has Years of Construction curtain is another of the many impacted on its interior 1884–96 delightful highlights of the Teatro and exterior appearance since its Inauguration December 31, 1896 Amazonas. Entitled Meeting of initial designs were created. The the Waters, it was created by most visible case in point is its Opening Performance Excerpts from various Brazilian scenographer Crispim Art Deco-inspired dome, which Italian operas do Amaral and allegorically is coated with over 36,000 ornaRenovations 1929, 1965, depicts the junction of the mented polychrome Alsatian tiles 1974, 1987–90 Negro and Solimões rivers, in the colors of Brazil’s national Architects where the city of Manaus is flag (blue, green, and yellow). Enrico Mazzolani and Domenico de Angelis located. The theater itself is An early example of eclecticism, Seating 701 centrally positioned on a large the dome clashes with the square near the confluence of Neoclassical style of the facade, these two rivers. The striking which is best exemplified by the foyer boasts one of the richest collections of decorClassical tympanum and Ionic columns. The theater ative paintings in Brazil. Its panels were painted was severely criticized for this aesthetic incongruity by Italian artist Domenico de Angelis and contain at the time of its inauguration. Nevertheless, today Amazonian rain forest motifs. The colorfully vibrant the dome is considered one of the theater’s most auditorium, built in a traditional Italian horseshoe popular architectural features. shape, contains multiple ground-floor columns above which cartouches with names from opera, drama, and poetry are displayed. The ceiling was also painted by de Angelis and is entitled Glorification 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 multitude of problems with the theater’s structural maintenance. The wood originally used for its construction, which was sourced from the surrounding 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.
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In a colorful burst of
nationalistic pride, the dome of the Teatro Amazonas features the hues of the flag 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.
Rubber Origins The 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 affluence and demonstrate 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. Funding 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 finished in late 1896. The Teatro Amazonas was inaugurated on December 31, 1896, with a concert featuring highlights from Italian operas. The first complete opera, Amilcare Ponchielli’s La Gioconda (1876), was performed one week later. Despite this auspicious beginning, political instability, 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, film festivals, and even an improvised
Fitzcarraldo and the Teatro Amazonas The Teatro Amazonas is best known in popular culture for its presence in Werner Herzog’s 1982 film 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 pretentiousness in turn-of-the-century Manaus, even if Herzog bends history to suit his filmic needs (Caruso never sang at the Teatro Amazonas). During the film’s opening minutes, the Teatro Amazonas’s facade, ornate interior, and colorful curtain each enjoy their moment in the spotlight.
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.
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A 2008 production
at the Teatro Amazonas of Ça Ira (2005), an opera by Roger Waters from the English rock band Pink Floyd. TOP
The foyer of the Teatro
Amazonas features a large number of the 198 chandeliers found throughout the theater.
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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.
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Specialized acoustic
equipment was lowered during the renovation of the Opéra Comique in Paris.
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 influence 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 instrumental or vocal sound after the instrument or voice has ceased to produce it. Reverberation time is
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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 significant 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 Acoustics Because some theaters are better suited to the performance of particular types of works, numerous composers have written a work with a specific 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 operatic 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 Sounds In a recent survey of 21 prominent opera conductors from around the world, the five 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 performance 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.
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The auditorium of the
Teatro Colón in Buenos Aires, Argentina, is regarded as the world’s most acoustically perfect space for opera.
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Operahuset in Oslo,
Norway, has curved wooden balcony fronts that help with sound diffusion.
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Cuvilliés-Theater in
Munich, Germany, has a compact auditorium that is well-suited to the works of Baroque opera composers.
Asia and Australia — Tra d i t i o n a n d I n n o va 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-first 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.
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pera was first introduced to Asia by Europeans 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 benefit of the European elite rather than for the larger native population.
Opera in Asia The first 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 orchestrations, 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 reflected 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 fixtures 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
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Napoleonic Rome to French colonial Southeast Asia. Opera in Asia has come full circle.
Opera in the Antipodes Opera 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 midnineteenth 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 Prokofiev’s War and Peace (1946) was televised across the country as part of the opera house’s opening celebrations.
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The Saigon Opera
House (also known as the Ho Chi Minh Municipal Theatre) was built in 1897. OPPOSITE PAGE
Indigenous
Asian art forms such as Beijing Opera often share the same theaters as Western opera.
Operatic Artists of Asia and Australia Throughout 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. An Australian stamp released in 2004 celebrates the life and career of Dame Joan Sutherland.