The Belltable Arts Centre in Limerick has marked its 21st anniversary by becoming the base for Co-Opera, the touring company of the national Opera Ireland. The centre is also preparing to move from its premises in O'Connell Street and is exploring the possibility of taking a lease on the former Theatre Royal, Cecil Street, established by the city's Athenaeum Society in the 19th century.
Consideration is also being given to the building of an arts, trade and commerce building where Arthur's Quay Park is now. Consultants Grant Thornton are exploring the option on behalf of the Chamber of Commerce.
Ms Liz Culloty, director of the centre, said the collaboration with Co-Opera was opportune at a time when the arts centre seeks to move to a new venue. She said the Belltable had played an important role as a development agency, assisting younger and budding arts organisations. She cited Limerick Youth Theatre, the Real Art Project and the Fresh Film Festival, which yesterday presented the Irish Schools Video Competition where new amateur film-makers demonstrate their work.
The centre was set up in 1981, in response to local needs and reflecting "a general upsurge in cultural and artistic activity in the country". It opened with Faith Healer, starring the late Donal McCann, a play which will return later this year.
Other premières have included Mike Finn's Pigtown and John Breen's Alone It Stands, which celebrates Munster's rugby win over the All Blacks in 1978 and recently completed a successful run in London's West End. "Over the years it has never allowed itself to be restricted by the fact that, in effect, it existed in quite a restrictive space, between an auditorium, a gallery and a basement, and a suite of offices that we rent up the street," Ms Culloty said.
The latest collaborative venture means Co-Opera will be the resident performing arts company in the centre, which will organise tours nationally and develop community outreach projects. Mr Michael Hunt, a founder director of Co-Opera and now an associate director of the Belltable, said: "The idea of coming to Limerick is to be at a centre of a community which we can serve and with which we can identify."
He said: "With the number of major organisations connected with the arts, from Lyric FM to the Irish Chamber Orchestra, Dagdha Dance Company, Island Theatre Company, the Irish World Music Centre and now Co-Opera, Limerick seems to really be about to flower into an extraordinary area for making work for the support of artists."
In a city known as "a centre for voice", he hopes to develop ways of involving people in opera projects "where it is possible for them to participate in a professional activity guided by professionals and with other professional singers and professional music directors and so on.
"The theme of making things is the key one for the work I am trying to do here."
He had been looking for a base outside Dublin for the three-year-old company and expects the Belltable will also become a centre for opera now, beginning with a return of Co-Opera's production of La Bohème in June. "In a sense that is a kind of crossover project because it is not made entirely from scratch here. It is bringing back something that was very successful."
On Tuesday, the University of Limerick's Irish World Music Centre will initiate a distance-learning project, with traditional Irish fiddler Liz Carroll giving a class from the University of Wisconsin at Milwaukee by video-link to MA students in traditional music performance. The venture will be reciprocated by Irish dancer and UL artist-in-residence, Colin Dunne, giving a lesson to dance students at the US university.