The building of an opera house on the Dublin docks, as suggested by the Arts Council before the summer, would cost, they then estimated, about £30 million. That is about how much the wonderful Waterfront Hall in Belfast cost to build, though some give the Dublin project a much higher price tag. The Abbey has rejected a move to the docks and has come back with its own plan. And Opera Ireland's artistic director, Dieter Khaegi, in launching its winter season last week, put his weight behind the modification of the Gaiety Theatre as an opera house.
The theatre went on sale during the summer. The ball-park "price tag" was £3.5 million but no buyer has been found. It seems the theatre is still for sale if the "right price" is forthcoming. Khaegi's dream is that the Arts Council will buy the theatre and that Opera Ireland will have it as its home. He shoots down suggestions made in these pages last week by the Arts Council director, Patricia Quinn, that it is too small. It is of a size comparable with opera houses in cities of similar size elsewhere in Europe, he says. "So many things don't work in big theatres. Mozart operas, for instance, need intimacy."
The executive director of the Gaiety, John Costigan, this year prepared an application for ERDF funding for the total refurbishment of the theatre, to provide a 40 per cent greater stage area and good backstage facilities, among other things, and put a price tag of £4.3 million on the package. Considering that the Gaiety must be retained and must remain a theatre - surely only those completely insensitive to the city's architectural and theatrical heritage would disagree - there must now be proper and serious discussion of its future.
