Arminta Wallace meets Vivian Coates, founder of Lyric Opera, celebrating its 10th anniversary with even more ambitious work.
What's the most popular opera? La Boheme, probably. Or maybe Madame Butterfly. Then there's Aida, Tosca, La traviata, Rigoletto, Die Fledermaus, Nabucco, Il Trovatore. All of which - plus Lucia di Lammermoor, The Merry Widow, Cavalleria Rusticana and Suor Angelica into the bargain - have wept, waltzed and generally wound their wickedly dramatic way across the stage of the National Concert Hall over the past decade, thanks largely to the passion and commitment of Vivian Coates. He is the founder and artistic director of Lyric Opera, the independent company which celebrates 10 years in the popular opera business next week with a new production of Puccini's Turandot at the NCH.
"We've done nearly all the big pot-boilers, and we've thrown in a couple of lesser-known operas as well - that's if you could call Hansel and Gretel and Macbeth lesser-known works," says Coates. "I think we've done Butterfly four times now - but people will always want to see Madame Butterfly. They'll always want to see La Boheme. It's when you widen it out to the Suor Angelica and Rusticana that Irish audiences sometimes say, 'Well, I don't know if I want to see that'. Bit of a conundrum, really. But we're happy that they've been flocking to popular opera. What am I saying? We're delighted that they come out at all."
Lyric Opera was set up, he explains, with the aim of enticing anybody and everybody to attend live opera. "That's why we keep our prices so low. But when people come to one of our productions they're getting the full monty. They're getting orchestra; they're getting international and Irish singers; they're getting a fully staged production with costumes, props and sets - or at least as far as we can go with a set in the National Concert Hall. So to celebrate our 10th anniversary we decided - well, I decided because really it's just me, but 'we decided' sounds better, doesn't it? - to push the boat out and do this huge, colourful, mad slice of Puccini."
It's an ambitious undertaking. Thanks to the combined efforts of a thousand tenors, we all know the Nessun Dorma aria - but few people, especially in Ireland, have seen the opera from which it comes. Which is a pity, because there's considerably more to Turandot than Nessun Dorma. There's an ice maiden and a manly hero. There are riddles, a tragic death and a happy ending. Turandot boasts, to quote the Viking Guide to Opera, "superb dramatic pacing . . . wrapped in an orchestral texture whose richness and invention Puccini had not previously equalled". Which, considering that it's Puccini's final opera, is high praise indeed.
As always with Lyric Opera, the production will team a top-notch visiting performer - in this case the American soprano Jean Glennan, who has, as Coates puts it, "sung the title role on numerous occasions and has a very good pedigree in both Europe and the US, as well as making recordings with eminent conductors, including Kent Nagano" - with a strong Irish contingent.
"Sandra Oman, who is singing the role of Liù, is a wonderfully sensitive singer and is part of the fabric of the company at this stage, having sung in something like 15 of our operas," says Coates. "She started in very small roles, but this time last year I cast her as Gilda in Rigoletto, and she had a fabulous success. At that point I earmarked her for the role of Liù in Turandot." Joining them will be the Irish singers Gerard O'Connor as Timur and Eugene O'Hagan as The Emperor.
"If there is an Irish person who can play the part, I will go after that person and do my best to engage them, and we've had wonderful Irish singers perform over the years, including Virginia Kerr, Imelda Drumm and Janice Condon," says Coates. "But we've also had some colourful characters from Iran and Germany and Argentina. It's great to have an international dimension to the cast."
It is, in fact, one of the many minor miracles which a successful opera production performs, this gelling of a myriad different nationalities, characters and musical approaches.
"Yes, well, they don't have much choice when they come to Lyric Opera," says Coates. "They have five days and they're in the pot and they just get on with it, thanks very much. I think in 10 years I've had - let's see - two difficult singers. One was in an early Butterfly. There was a wig problem. This person didn't want to wear a wig, and said it wasn't in their contract. But eventually - how shall I put this? - eventually we wore the wig. It's amazing what people pull out of the bag. The other incident had to do with a costume in Macbeth. One of the principals wanted the cloak belonging to the other one, and went all childish - pouted and blustered around and created a huge furore over absolutely nothing."
Lyric Opera didn't get where it is today by putting up with such shenanigans. But how did it get where it is today? Determination and hard work have undoubtedly played a part. So has a clever tailoring of repertoire to audience; and a judicious balancing of the financial books.
"Obviously I have losses every now and again," Coates admits. "And it all comes out of one coffer. Lyric has no safety net. We're battling alone, trying to keep up all the time - trying to fight, even, the levels of marketing the bigger companies have. That's what we're up against. It's quite - what's the word I'm looking for? Herculean. It's a Herculean task. To present opera in Ireland now is really quite difficult."
The bigger companies would doubtless agree. In May, 1995, Coates began modestly with one semi-staged concert performance a year, then two; then he added a concert of popular classics - Rodgers & Hammerstein and such-like - in order to maximise the crossover audience potential, in both directions.
These days most Lyric productions run to two or even, for the most popular operas, three nights. "It's a question of economies of scale," he explains. "The work is done; you've engaged the people; they're here anyway; and it works very well." What he'd like to do in the future, he says, is export opera to Northern Ireland. "I'm going to incorporate my chorus with a chorus in the North, which will build our forces here and also - hopefully - form the basis for our productions to travel to Belfast. There are loads of people up there who adore opera; fine singers who want to be involved; the Ulster Hall is perfect; it seats about 1,400 people; and the acoustics are beautiful. So why not?"
Meanwhile, the company will continue its anniversary celebrations with a three-year programme of early Verdi operas - I due Foscari, Attila and Luisa Miller - the first of which is scheduled for May.
"This is something which has been dear to my heart for a number of years," says Coates. "Nobody in Ireland - apart from Wexford - has really tackled any of these. We're doing semi-staged performances just so that people can hear the music; the prices will, of course, reflect that. And in 2006 we'll be doing The Marriage of Figaro. In 10 years it's our first Mozart and I cannot wait."
During those 10 years, how much public funding has he had? Not a penny. "In the early days we applied for funding and were told that we were duplicating what Opera Ireland were doing. Which possibly, 10 years ago, we were - even though we were doing it differently. But now Opera Ireland has gone down another track, doing Lady Macbeth of Mtensk and The Silver Tassie, which is exactly what a national opera company should be doing, with an occasional popular piece thrown in for good measure. So, now we complement them. Maybe in the future we'll be looked on with favour. I don't know. Anyway, we're still here after 10 years - there's that 'we' again - so we're obviously doing something right."
