Royal Opera House
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The Royal Opera House is a performing arts venue in London. It is also sometimes referred to as "Covent Garden" after the London neighborhood in which it is located. The building serves as the home of the Royal Opera and of the Royal Ballet.
The current edifice is the third theatre on the site. The facade, foyer and auditorium date from 1856, but almost every other element of the present complex dates from a reconstruction in the 1990s.
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History
The first theatre
In 1728, John Rich, an actor and manager, commissioned The Beggar's Opera from John Gay. The success of the venture provided the capital with its first Theatre Royal (designed by Edward Shepherd) at the site, which opened on December 7, 1732.
The first hundred years or so of its history the theatre was primarily a playhouse; the Letters Patent granted by Charles II had given Covent Garden and Drury Lane virtually exclusive rights to present spoken drama in London.
The first serious musical works to be heard at Covent Garden were the operas of Handel. From 1735 until his death in 1759 he gave regular seasons there, and many of his operas and oratorios were written for Covent Garden or had their first London performances there. He bequeathed his organ to John Rich, and it was placed in a prominent position on the stage. Unfortunately, it was among many valuable items lost in a fire that destroyed the theatre in 1808.
The second theatre
Theatre_Royal_Covent_Garden_by_Thomas_Hosmer_Shepherd_1827-28.JPG
During this time, entertainments were varied; opera and ballet were presented, but not exclusively. In 1843, the Theatres Act broke the patent theatres' monopoly of drama. At that time Her Majesty's Theatre in the Haymarket was the main centre of ballet and opera, but after a dispute with the management in 1846 Michael Costa, conductor at Her Majesty's, transferred his allegiance to Covent Garden, bringing most of the company with him. The auditorium was completely remodelled and the theatre reopened as the Royal Italian Opera on April 6, 1847 with a performance of Rossini's Semiramide.
The third theatre
On March 5, 1856, the theatre was again destroyed by fire. Work on the third and present theatre (designed by Edward Middleton Barry) eventually started in 1857 and the new building opened on May 15, 1858 with a performance of Meyerbeer's Les Huguenots. The theatre became the Royal Opera House in 1892 and the number of French and German works in the repertory increased. Winter and summer seasons of opera and ballet were given.
During the First World War the theatre was requisitioned by the Ministry of Works for use as a furniture repository. During the Second World War it became a dance hall. There was a possibility that it would remain so after the war but, following lengthy negotiations, the music publishers Boosey and Hawkes acquired the lease of the building. David Webster was appointed General Administrator and Sadler's Wells Ballet was invited to become the resident ballet company.
The Royal Opera House reopened on February 20, 1946 with a performance of The Sleeping Beauty in an extravagant new production designed by Oliver Messel. Webster, with his music director Karl Rankl, immediately began to build a resident company. In December, 1946, they shared their first production, Purcell's The Fairy Queen, with the ballet company. On January 14, 1947 the Covent Garden Opera Company gave its first performance of Bizet's Carmen.
Reconstruction in the 1990s
In 1975 the Labour government gave land adjacent to the Royal Opera House for a long-overdue modernisation, refurbishment and extension. By 1995, sufficient funds had been raised to enable the company to embark upon a major reconstruction of the building between 1996 and 2000. This involved the demolition of almost the whole site except for the auditorium itself, including several adjacent buildings to make room for a major increase in the overall scale of the complex. In terms of volume well over half of the complex is new. The cost was over £220 million, £78 million of which controversially came from the National Lottery. The new venue had the same traditional horseshoe shaped auditorium as before, but greatly improved technical, rehearsal, office and educational facilities, a new studio theatre called the Linbury Theatre, and much more public space.
Royal Opera company
The Royal Opera is London and the United Kingdom's most famous and wealthiest opera company. Generally it is also the most artistically important, although some of its productions disappoint, and other British opera companies sometimes receive better reviews. It is however, the only British opera company which regularly features the world's most famous opera singers. It performs operas in their original language and relies on guest artists to play the principal roles in all performances, in contrast to the other permanent opera company in London, the English National Opera, which performs in English and has contracted singers.
The Royal Opera shares the "Orchestra of the Royal Opera House", which is a permanent orchestra of full symphony orchestra size, with the Royal Ballet. It has its own permanent chorus with over forty five singers: the Royal Opera Chorus. A third group of musicians on salary are the members of the "Vilar Young Artists Programme", who receive advanced professional training. They are not students as the term is usually understood as most of them have performed professionally at opera houses of some standing before previously, but the programme is intended to accelerate their careers by gaining experience at one of the world's leading opera companies. The programme lasts for two years, with a new intake each summer. Most of the "Young Artists" are singers, but they also include conductors, répétiteurs and stage directors.
Music directors of the Royal Opera
- 1946-51 Karl Rankl
- 1951-55 interregnum
- 1955-58 Rafael Kubelik
- 1958-61 interregnum
- 1961-71 Sir George Solti
- 1971-87 Sir Colin Davis
- 1987-2002 Bernard Haitink
- 2002-present Antonio Pappano
Further Reading
- Norman Lebrecht, Covent Garden: The Untold Story: Dispatches from the English Culture War, 1945-2000, Northeastern University Press 2001
External links
- Royal Opera House (http://www.royalopera.org/)
- The Royal Ballet (http://info.royaloperahouse.org/ballet/index.cfm?ccs=473)
- The Royal Ballet School (http://www.royal-ballet-school.org.uk/index.htm)