As England's Glyndebourne festival gets under way, opera novice CONOR POWERpreviews some of the year's main events
DEVOTEES of opera have a passion and knowledge that are in direct and inverse proportion to the puzzlement and plain lack of interest of those who aren’t affected by its charms. I have come across opera fanatics whose obsessions would leave even the most hardened rock fans looking like a bunch of blubbering teeny-boppers.
One man told me how, in his youth, he would sleep rough for days, often going without adequate food on top of it, just so he could blag his way into the Bayreuth Festival, in Bavaria, where performances of Wagner’s marathon Der Ring des Nibelungen cycle attract the greatest excesses of opera mania.
Having long been an opera virgin myself, my curiosity finally got the better of me, and I threw myself into the form’s mysterious dominion at the Státní Opera, in Prague, a couple of years ago. I figured that central Europe was a good place to start.
On the evening in question my wife and I were feeling slightly tired and emotional from having stayed up past our bedtime in the city centre the night before. The State Opera House is one of two places in Prague where operas are performed regularly. It’s a stylish 19th-century building with a highly decorative neo-rococo interior, just off the top end of Wenceslas Square.
The tickets cost about €80 for the pair of us, and the plush surroundings made us feel like royalty amid the multinational audience. The show was Verdi’s Aida – a good one for the novice opera fan, I was told – and from the first blast of music I was hooked.
There simply isn’t a show quite like an opera. Not only are you hearing a top-class live orchestra, but you’re also looking at a play with some serious production values, as well as listening to some cracking good singers who seemingly effortlessly project their huge voices across a beautiful auditorium without the aid of an amplifier or a backing track.
The sum of all these parts is wrapped up in an ethereal package, creating a unique dream world, and before you can say Gesamtkunstwerk you’ve crossed into another realm altogether – one in which you can’t stop looking around you in amazement, even though you’re still not sure what’s going on.
In this case there were helpful notes in English in the programme, explaining the story, but everything was sung in Italian – a language in which I really only know how to ask for directions or beer and conduct a limited discussion on the weather (provided it’s sunny).
There were also surtitles, but these were in Czech – a language that is still a great mystery to me. None of this detail deterred me from loving every second of it, and we emerged into the central European night after the performance with a feeling akin to having had a really nice warm bath.
So, having dipped one’s ankle in the operatic waters of this world, to where does one go next? Operatic companies and festivals are to be found on all continents, with the highest concentration of them in Europe. But did you know that there is a highly-regarded opera house in Havana, that opera is well established in Japan and Korea or that there is a thriving (and recently restored) opera house in tropical northern Brazil – one that partly inspired the film Fitzcarraldo?
There is a myriad of venues around the world, with more festivals being started and more restorations being undertaken every year. China and Spain are two countries where opera has seen huge development as a result of sustained investment.
If, like me, you’re a relative novice, the panel opposite is a selection of events that are worth checking out over the coming 12 months.
Europe's must-visit festivals
Glyndebourne
WhereLewes, East Sussex, England, runs until August 30th, www.glyndebourne.com.
How to get thereRegular daily flights to London are available from a variety of airlines. Daily train services from central London (Victoria) to Lewes with charter coach or taxi to Glyndebourne (7km).
How muchTickets range from £10 to £210 (€11 to €236).
What they say"For a total experience of opera, the auditorium, the setting, relaxation, Glyndebourne is difficult to beat. Performances have a 90-minute interval, when the audience either takes a picnic outside, overlooking the sheep in the fields, or eats in an adjacent series of restaurants. The auditorium is particularly intimate and the quality of singing very high," says Anne Minors, a London-based performance consultant who has worked on opera-house designs from Covent Garden to Kazakhstan.
Aix-en-Provence
WhereSouthern France, July 3rd-31st, www.festival- aix.com.
How to get thereAer Lingus (www.aerlingus.com) operates a twice-weekly service. Ryanair (www.ryanair.com) offers a seasonal thrice-weekly service from Dublin to Marseilles, with regular connecting train service.
How muchFestival d'Aix-en-Provence offers an under-28s reduced fee of €15 for an opera performance. In addition, a free child's place is offered with every adult ticket (from €30 to €350).
What they say"The big three festivals in the world are Bayreuth, Salzburg and Aix-en-Provence. Bayreuth has a 10-year waiting list, Salzburg can cost about €500, but the festival in Aix is much more accessible and affordable. It does more than other festivals in its interest in young people.There is an academy for young singers and musicians, and they do a lot to make the art form more accessible to a wider audience," says Dieter Kaegi, artistic director of Opera Ireland.
Verona
WhereNorthern Italy,
June19th-August 30th, www.arena.it.
How to get thereAer Lingus (www.aerlingus. com) and Ryanair (www.ryanair.com) fly from Dublin to Venice and Venice-Treviso, respectively, four times a week.
How muchTickets range from €21 to €198, depending on seating location.
What they say"In the US it's hard to top the setting of the Santa Fe Opera, for its spectacular position surrounded by the Sangre de Cristo mountains, or Seattle, to where people flock in the summer for the Wagner performances . . . For anyone who's new to opera, however, then you should go to the ancient open-air theatre in Verona and see something like Aida, with the elephants and various animals on stage," says David Agler, artistic director of Wexford Festival Opera.
Wexford
WhereIreland, October 21st-November 1st, www.wexfordopera.com.
How muchTickets start at €25
What they say"A sense of discovery that's just as potent as the municipality's omnipresent aroma of burning peat proves to be this festival's calling card: emerging young stars take part in little-known operas, presented with remarkable musical and dramatic merits under artistic director David Agler. What seemingly never ceases to delight the festival's devotees is the singular combination of challenging onstage rarities with the thoroughly Celtic brand of hospitality that abounds off-stage," notes Frommer's, which lists Wexford Festival Opera among the world's top 10 destinations for opera lovers.
Valencia
WhereSouthern Spain, May 30th-June 30th, www.lesarts.com.
How to get thereRyanair operates a seasonal twice-weekly service from Dublin to Valencia.
How muchTickets range from €38 to €135.
What they say"It's a city with a small centre . . . The opera house is one of a number of remarkable new buildings here and the toast of Catalonia's architecture. It's fascinating and it's worth going to Valencia purely to see the opera house," says Ian Jones of Jones-Rowe Opera Tours.
For more
www.opera.cz Prague State Opera.
www.operaireland.com Contains information on upcoming operatic events around Ireland.
www.jgt.ie John Gilligan Travel, a specialist tour company, offers opera tours, including an operatic cruise featuring the Stella Maris International Vocal Competition on board from October 25th to November 4th, sailing from Venice to Barcelona.
www.jonesroweopera.org London-based tour operator running bespoke accompanied operatic tours.
www.operabase.com Information site with an interactive map showing the locations of opera houses and opera events around the world.