The HIghlights and Lowlights of the year in Opera
THE HIGHLIGHTS
WEXFORD OPERA HOUSE
Wexford, October
The Wexford Opera House (below) opened its doors in October to an avalanche of praise. There's a lot of curiosity about what kind of artistic activity will take place there outside of festival time, and there's a current of thought which seems to be based on the idea that the scale and quality of such activity should be related to the cost of the building. It seems a tall order to me. Better to be grateful that the building actually meets its primary purpose so well.
IRISH OPERA
Two Irish operas made a strong impression this year. Balfe's Falstaff, unheard since 1838, was given a concert performance by Opera Ireland and RTÉ in September. The CD recording made on the night can only continue the enhancement of the composer's reputation that was started by the performance. And the 20-minute, one-act Strindberg setting, La Plus Forte, presented by RTÉ in June, also in a concert performance, found Gerald Barry striking out in a new, neo-classical direction.
OPERA NORTH
Grand Opera House, Belfast
Opera North's February season at the Grand Opera House in Belfast included Phyllida Lloyd's memorably oppressive production of Britten's Peter Grimes and Jonathan Dove's The Adventures of Pinocchio, a high-class, old-style theatrical extravaganza which was genuinely an opera for all ages.
THE LOWLIGHTS
GOVERNMENT CUTS
The Government's tight-fistedness rankles with the Arts Council. And, in turn, the council's tight-fistedness rankles with the opera sector.
Back in 2005 the council formed an opera working group to decide whether opera needed a lift to €4.6 million a year, or €8 million. The lower figure, which the working group recommended, represented 7.5 per cent of the Arts Council's 2005 funding. The actual spend on core companies this year was €3.97 million - that's just 4.84 per cent of what the council itself received in 2008.
OPERA IRELAND
Gaiety Theatre
You never know how Opera Ireland's seasons will turn out. This year's spring productions, of Mozart's Nozze di Figaro and Strauss's Ariadne auf Naxos were both wide of the mark. The winter offerings, of Puccini's Madama Butterfly and Britten's A Midsummer Night's Dream, were in an altogether superior league.
Something fundamental needs to be done to get the company's work in the Gaiety Theatre above a 50 per cent hit rate.