An opera house is a theater building used for opera performances that consists of a stage, an orchestra pit, audience seating, and backstage facilities for costumes and set building. This article is about venues for live Theatre performances for information about venues for Film projection see Movie theater. Opera is an art form in which Singers and Musicians perform a Dramatic work (called an opera which combines a text (called a Libretto While some venues are constructed specifically for operas, other opera houses are part of larger performing arts centers. The performing arts are those forms of Art which differ from the Plastic arts insofar as the former uses the artist's own Body, Face and presence
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History
The first public opera house was the Teatro San Cassiano in Venice, Italy, which opened in 1637. The Teatro San Cassiano or Teatro di San Cassiano in Venice was the first public Opera house when it opened in 1637 Venice ( Italian: Venezia, Venetian: Venesia or Venexia) is a city in Northern Italy, the capital of the Italy, where opera has been popular through the centuries among ordinary people as well as wealthy patrons, still has a large number of opera houses. [1] When Henry Purcell was composing, there was no opera house in London. Henry Purcell (ˈpɜrsəl 10 September 1659 (? – 21 November 1695 was an English Baroque Composer. The first opera house in Germany was built in Hamburg 1678. Hamburg (English, German: ˈhambʊɐk local pronunciation Low German / Low Saxon: Hamborg) is the second-largest city in Germany Early U. S. opera houses served a variety of functions in towns and cities, hosting community dances, fairs, plays, and vaudeville shows as well as operas and other musical events.
In the 17th and 18th centuries, opera houses were often financed by rulers, nobles, and wealthy people who used patronage of the arts to endorse their political ambitions and social positions or prestige. Patronage is the support encouragement privilege and often financial aid given by a person or an organization With the rise of bourgeois and capitalist social forms in the 19th century, European culture moved away from its patronage system to the more publicly-supported system. Capitalism is the Economic system in which the Means of production are owned by private Persons and operated for Profit and where In the 2000s, most opera and theatres raise funds from a combination of government and institutional grants, ticket sales and, to a smaller extent, private donations. Grants are funds dispersed by one party (Grant Makers often a Government Department Corporation Foundation or Trust to a recipient, often (but not always
Features
Because many operas call for large-scale productions, opera houses are usually large – generally more than 1,000 seats and often several thousand seats. Traditionally, Europe's major opera houses built in the 19th century contained between about 1,500 to 3,000 seats, examples being Brussels' La Monnaie (after renovations, with 1,700 seats), Odessa Opera and Ballet Theater (with)1,636, Paris' Opéra Garnier (with 2,200) and the Royal Opera House in London (with 2268). Brussels (Bruxelles pronounced; Brussel pronounced) officially the Brussels Capital-Region, is The Koninklijke Muntschouwburg ( de Munt) (Dutch, or le Théâtre Royal de la Monnaie ( la Monnaie) (French (both meaning Royal Theatre The Odessa National Academic Theater of Opera and Ballet is the oldest theater in Odessa, Ukraine. Paris (ˈpærɨs in English; in French) is the Capital of France and the country's largest city The Palais Garnier, also known as the Opéra de Paris or Opéra Garnier, but more commonly as the Paris Opéra, is a 2200-seat WikipediaWikiProject Opera --> The Royal Opera House is an Opera house and major performing Modern opera houses of the twentieth century such as New York's Metropolitan Opera (with 3,800) and the San Francisco Opera (with 3,146) are larger. New York ( is a state in the Mid-Atlantic and Northeastern regions of the United States and is the nation's third most populous The Metropolitan Opera Association of New York City, founded in April 1880 is a major presenter of all types of opera including Grand Opera. San Francisco Opera (SFO is the second largest Opera company in North America. Many operas do not require large-scale productions and may be presented in smaller theaters, such as Venice's La Fenice with about 1,000 seats. Venice ( Italian: Venezia, Venetian: Venesia or Venexia) is a city in Northern Italy, the capital of the Teatro La Fenice ("The Phoenix " is an Opera house in Venice, Italy.
In a traditional opera house, the auditorium is normally U-shaped, with the length of the sides determining the audience capacity. Around this are tiers of balconies, and often, nearer the stage, are boxes (small partitioned sections of a balcony).
Since the latter part of the nineteenth century, opera houses generally have an orchestra pit, where a large number of orchestra players may be seated at a level below the audience, so that they can play without overwhelming the singing voices. An orchestra pit is area in a theater (usually located in a lowered area in front of the stage in which musicians perform This is especially true of Wagner's Bayreuth Festspielhaus where the pit is almost completely covered. Bayreuthfestjpg|thumb|350px|right|Bayreuth Festspielhaus as seen in 1882
The size of an opera orchestra varies, but for some operas, oratorios and other works, it may be very large; for some romantic period works (or for many of the operas of Richard Strauss), it can be well over 100 players. An oratorio is a large Musical composition including an Orchestra, a Choir, and soloists The oratorio was somewhat modeled after the Opera Richard Georg Strauss (11 June 1864 &ndash 8 September 1949 was a German Composer of the late Romantic era and early modern era particularly noted Similarly, an opera may have a large cast of characters, chorus, dancers and supernumeraries. Therefore, a major opera house will have extensive dressing room facilities. Opera houses often have on-premises set and costume building shops and facilities for storage of costumes, make-up, masks, and stage properties, and may also have rehearsal spaces.
Major opera houses throughout the world often have highly mechanized stages, with large stage elavators permitting heavy sets to be changed rapidly. In Theatre, the stage (sometimes referred to as the deck in Stagecraft) is a designated space for the Performance of theatrical productions At the Metropolitan Opera, for instance, sets are often changed during the action, as the audience watches, with singers rising or descending as they sing. The Metropolitan Opera Association of New York City, founded in April 1880 is a major presenter of all types of opera including Grand Opera. This occurs in the Met's productions of operas such as Aida and Tales of Hoffman. This article is about the marketing term AIDA For other uses of the term see Aida (disambiguation. London's Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, which was remodelled in the late 1990s, retained the original 1858 auditorium at its core, but added completely new backstage and wing spaces in addition to an additional performance space and public areas. London ( ˈlʌndən is the capital and largest urban area in the United Kingdom. WikipediaWikiProject Opera --> The Royal Opera House is an Opera house and major performing Covent Garden (Pronunciation kɒvʌnt is a district in London, England, located on the easternmost parts of the City of Westminster and the southwest Much the same happened in the remodeling of Milan's La Scala opera house between 2002/2004. The Teatro alla Scala (or La Scala, as it is known in Milan, Italy, is one of the world's most famous Opera houses The theatre was
Although stage, lighting and other production aspects of opera houses often make use of the latest technology, traditional opera houses have not used sound reinforcement systems with microphones and speakers to amplify the singers, since trained opera singers are normally able to project their unamplified voices in the hall. A sound reinforcement system is an arrangement of Microphones electronic Signal processors Amplifiers and Loudspeakers that makes live or pre-recorded Since the 1990s, however, many opera houses have begun using a subtle form of sound reinforcement called acoustic enhancement (see below). Acoustic enhancement is a subtle type of Sound reinforcement system used to augment direct reflected or reverberant sound
Often, operas are presented in their original languages, which may be different from the first language of the audience. For example, a Wagnerian opera presented in London may be in German. Therefore, modern opera houses have begun to assist audience understanding of the text of the operas by providing supertitles, which project the words over or near the stage. Surtitles, also known as supertitles, are translated or transcribed Lyrics projected above a stage or displayed on a screen commonly used in Opera or other More recently, electronic libretto systems have begun to be used in some opera houses, including New York's Metropolitan Opera and the Crosby Theatre of the Santa Fe Opera, which show the words on individual screens attached to the backs of the seats. The Electronic libretto system is used primarily in opera houses and is a device which presents translations of lyrics into an audience's language or transcribes lyrics that The Metropolitan Opera Association of New York City, founded in April 1880 is a major presenter of all types of opera including Grand Opera. The Santa Fe Opera (SFO is an American Opera company located north of Santa Fe in the U
Acoustic enhancement with loudspeakers
A subtle type of sound reinforcement called acoustic enhancement is used in some opera houses. Acoustic enhancement is a subtle type of Sound reinforcement system used to augment direct reflected or reverberant sound Acoustic enhancement systems help give a more even sound in the hall and prevent "dead spots" in the audience seating area by ". . . augment[ing] a hall's intrinsic acoustic characteristics. " The systems use ". . . an array of microphones connected to a computer [which is] connected to an array of loudspeakers. " However, as concertgoers have become aware of the use of these systems, debates have arisen, because ". . . purists maintain that the natural acoustic sound of [Classical] voices [or] instruments in a given hall should not be altered. "[2]
Kai Harada [3] states that opera houses have begun using electronic acoustic enhancement systems ". . . to compensate for flaws in a venue's acoustical architecture. " Despite the uproar that has arisen amongst operagoers, Harada points out that none of the opera houses using acoustic enhancement systems ". . . use traditional, Broadway-style sound reinforcement, in which most if not all singers are equipped with radio microphones mixed to a series of unsightly loudspeakers scattered throughout the theatre. " Instead, most opera houses use the sound reinforcement system for acoustic enhancement, and for subtle boosting of offstage voices, onstage dialogue, and sound effects (e. g. , church bells in Tosca or thunder in Wagnerian operas). Tosca is an Opera in three acts by Giacomo Puccini to an Italian Libretto by Luigi Illica and Giuseppe Giacosa, based on
One example of the use of this kind of enhancement is the New York State Theater used by the New York City Opera company. The New York State Theater (to be renamed in 2008 the David H New York State Theater by David Shankbonejpg|thumb| New York State Theater]] The New York City Opera (NYCO is based in Philip Johnson 's New York State
See also
References
- Information about opera houses from BBC website
- The history of opera houses and description of some of the great houses
- Vintage postcard images of opera theaters
- History of opera
- Allison, John (ed. Opera houses are listed by continent then by country with the name of the opera house and city the opera company is sometimes named for clarity Theatre (or theater, see spelling differences) is the branch of the Performing arts defined by Bernard Beckerman as what "occurs when one Opera is an art form in which Singers and Musicians perform a Dramatic work (called an opera which combines a text (called a Libretto A concert hall is a cultural building which serves as performance venue chiefly for classical instrumental music This is a list of Buildings and Nonbuilding structures. By type List of abbeys and priories List ), Great Opera Houses of the World, supplement to Opera Magazine, London 2003
- Beauvert, Thierry, Opera Houses of the World, The Vendome Press, New York, 1995. ISBN 0-86565-978-8
- Hughes, Spike. Great Opera Houses; A Traveller's Guide to Their History and Traditions, London: Weidenfeld & Nicholson, 1956.
- Kaldor, Andras. Great Opera Houses (Masterpieces of Architecture) Antique Collectors Club, 2002. ISBN 1851493638
- Lynn, Karyl Charna, Opera: the Guide to Western Europe's Great Houses, Santa Fe, New Mexico: John Muir Publications, 1991. ISBN 0-945465-81-5
- Lynn, Karyl Charna, Italian Opera Houses and Festivals, Lanham, Maryland: The Scarecrow Press, Inc. , 2005. ISBN 0-8108-5359-0
- Plantamura, Carol, The Opera Lover's Guide to Europe, Citadel Press, 1996, ISBN 0-8065-1842-1
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