Opera in Ireland - general discussion thread on all things opera in Ireland

jonny yes I see your point and I welcome the screenings, but from a commercial point of view I have some niggling doubts about them - as far as OI is concerned. As you know I live in the stix so I really welcome the broadcasts in places like Sligo and Galway etc, lets have a positive mental attitude about them. My question about them possibly cannibalising the OI audience is that at 25 euro a throw, it's not just a night at the flicks, (the ten euro pre recorded shows are great value), and at 25 euro a throw some OI audience members may just say I will do three Met operas instead of one OI performance. On the whole though my view is they are a welcome initiative.

The problem we have is that the artistic standards at OI in the past few years have dropped so much one has to question for the mainstream repertoire would you rather see a stellar cast in the cinema or a mediocre cast and poor production in the gaiety?

Sandwlch wrote: »

Not too surprising. They have seriously misjudged the price and its a shame. E105 in the stalls - which is far too expensive. In Belfast its only Stg38.5 for a stalls ticket. Maybe they are realising the mistake now, but its too late to change the prices (was the under 26 reduction offered from the beginning?). It will be a shame if there are only a handful of you there. I guess we will have a full house or as close as in Belfast.

Hi guys I have been off this thread for a while great to see it has been kept going - now sandwich you have me on a pet subject here - Grand Canal Theatre have lost the plot with the pricing on LB from SO. Compared with the prices in Belfast -Tis a major blunder me thinks. Mind you the pricing itself is not driven by GCT as they are known as a "receiving house" they rent themselves out to companies/performers and comparing the prices in Belfast and dublin is not compring level playing fields.

I have heard that GCT is very expensive to hire - and SO will need to recover costs once they cross the border; as the tour to Belfast will be unerwrittne to a certain extent by NI Arts council and the Belffast Grand Opera House is subsidised (i think) by Belfast City council and the NI Arts council - this all adds up to less cost per seat in the house that needs to be recovered in ticket revenue.

I think it may sell quite well as the Dublin opera audience is starved of decent opera - but really La Boheme has got to be banker to sell out - imagine trying to sell say peter grimes at these prices (mind i would rather see Grimes any day of the week),

However like Jonny I have done a check just now and typed in 10 tickets for the Saturday night - June 19th and you can get ten at any price apart from 45 euro (the lowest price) this seems to suggest it is sellling really badly and the "cheap" seats have gone - my guess is those that may have sat in the better seats in the past have bought the "cheap" seats as better value - you may end up with a very inbalanced house with the cheap seats sold out and the bottom half of the hosue struggling to sell - its on for four nights - with 2100 tickets to sell each night, that's 8,400 seats (an entire OI season would be less seats than this and that would be for two operas - the question arises does dublin even have an audience to sell 8,400 seats to its opera going public - is our opera going public as much as 8,400 in Dublin? or een Ireland for that matter), with the Belfast option for basically anyone living north of say Swords as a realistic option - taking out a huge swathe of potential customers - and considering we all want to see th new theatre (but not at any cost),

And the option of getting an opera hit on June 10th of Tosca at Dundrum or Swords Cinema I reckon this all begins to look a bit worrying for SO and GCT, now I may be wrong - I won't be in GCT to find out - as i intend going to Belfast the week before.

I know they have had a few complaints about the price differentials as said I will be cross border opera shopping!

JonnyBlackrock wrote: »

It got a very bad review in today's Irish Times:
http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/features/2010/0512/1224270200262.html

I think I'll pass.

Jonny, Michael Dervan does sometimes talk through his backside! and forgets Opera is actually a form of entertainment, all I know is that everyone at the Hawkswell in sligo where I saw last week came out smiling - I posted a review via email to OTC which they posted on their Facebook page will paste up here. Anyway this is what I thought of OTC Figaro:

Caught the Figaro last night in Sligo – congratulations to the company on
yet another success – in particular to Annilese for a simple production
With some lovely twists in the tail.
...Its difficult to bring freshness to a masterpiece, as ever OTC achieves
A twist in the tail without imposing an “opinion” or statement of
direction on a perennial favourite.
The feisty sexiness and earthiness of Susanna for me the lynchpin of
This production – the cast played out a story which has at its the essence
The complicated nature of relationships between Men and Women, worker and
master, Society and its mores, in a quite delicious combination of
pantomime, the tragedy of lost love, the joy of new love and the comedy of
misunderstandings we went from one emotion to the other – in the same way as
we do in life. Little wonder this is such an enduring masterpiece – it is
a timeless comment on humankind. The near end of term confinement of the
Contessa was the lime instead of lemon in this delicious gin and tonic,
A twist we didn’t quite expect but worked so well.
You know seeing Figaro in this way I have come to the conclusion is the
Only way to see this opera – written for the confines of the small court
Theatres of the latter 18th century not the grand opera houses of the world
– you need a good competent professional cast and an intimate theatre, as
ever OTC assembled a fine cast of both singers and actors – whilst its
great to hear the greats sing the roles like Figaro the Countessa and the
Count, it is equally thrilling to see and hear the drama unfold in the
intimacy of a small house, with good professional singers. The humankind
experience of the work is so much stronger at the scale we saw last night.
Once again. Well done. About my 30th Nozze di Figaro I would say, I gave
up counting a long time ago. But it came to me as freshly as it is was the
first performance I had ever seen. Congrats to all.

Anniedublin77 wrote: »

A friend of mine attended OTC's The Marriage of Figaro in the Samuel Beckett last weekend and loved it, I've just booked tickets to see it at the Civic Theatre out in Tallaght and was wondering has anyone else seen it and what did they think ??

Annie I hope you got to see this Figaro - the Irish Times Critic Michael Dervan tends to forget that opera is a form of entertainment and I think inserts an ice cube up his backside before he writes his somewhat pompous reviews. This was a lovely figaro and deserved its response from the audience.


Take a look at what the OTC audience are saying about it on the OTC facebook site they love it!!! Its a bit late at night and I was going to post something up tongiht but did anyone else go the Rheingold cinema telecast from La Scala tonight? WOW.

JonnyBlackrock wrote: »

Whatever about the Scottish Opera, as I don't know much about it although I'll know a bit more after I've seen their Boheme in June, why dont' they try to create something like the WNO? Wales only has a population of 3 million, but the WNO are superb, on the whole. Of course they've had their turkeys, but which opera company hasn't?

The thing that's the most depressing about this country is the poverty of its ambition. It's always happy to be "second best" (or third or fourth), and comfortable to be "somewhere in the middle of the scale". Why not aspire to being the best?

Jonny nice thought but WNO have 50 years experience and are considered an International opera company as their reputation is so good. Sure Wales only has a population of 3 million but WNO draws its audience from big UK conurbations with a loyal audience at locations like Birmingham, Oxford, Southampton, Cardiff (of course) and Liverpool - they are called WNO but in reality they are Welsh National, and Middle England opera Company - there actual audience draw if you take a 75 mile circle around all of the venues they perform at is about 40 million people! Scottish Opera does not penetrate the high density UK conurbations as much but probably has an audience draw of about 12 million; they are the smaller cousins of the family of UK regional opera companies (along with Opera North), but if you look at their website and how they do reach out to the entire country of Scotland and the offerings they give (look at their website) you can begin to see I hope why as a model - this might be what we could aspire to, who knows what may come from the ministers office now.

The public booking opens today - they have an excellent website for booking very easy to identify where and when tickets are available - most of the lesser costing best value seats have gone but there are some still available for various performances at 25 euro (are you listening Grand Canal Theatre!). Anyway the website is really very good - so much better than companies contracting out the sale of tickets through the web channel to the likes of Ticketmaster - there are no booking fees on the Wexford site - except for a one euro charge for postage, which is pretty good - i hate the ticketmaster booking fees - its like buying opera tickets from Ryanair, such a bloody tabloid experience. Anyway fair play to Wexford the drop down menus to see what tickets are available in each part of the house and the whole ticket selection process is very good - I also love the idea that you click on the tickets you want and you can hold them in your basket for an hour - it gave me a chance this morning to ring a mate in England see if he was coming over and he went on line and reserved his seat at the same time. It's one of the better ones.

For example I got 25 Euro tickets for Virginia on Monday 25th (Bank holiday monday), ok they are slighly restrictred view in a circle box but I think that is a fair price. http://www.wexfordopera.com/ and click all the links to the box office.

Next week we have the La Boheme in Belfast at the Grand opera house, and next Thursday June 10th there is an opera in cinema HD broadcast available in Letterkenny, Caslebar, Dungarvan, Swords Dundrum and Ballymena of Tosca from La Fenice Genova at 7.30 go to www.operaincinema.com for details. Great value at 15 Euro (or at least thats what they charge in Mayo!)

The week after of course Scottish Opera head to the rip off Republic....much debated issue of ticket prices north and south of the border. OTC are finishing off the highly successful tour of Figaro this week.

Sandwich thanks for the heads up on Carmen - hope it goes well - too far for me to travel and Dieter is directing......My views well known on that subject! I agree about ETO and seeing Figaro on a smaller scale - yes we sometimes get too wrapped up in listening to perfect recordings of the great voices doing the big arias, and forget about the drama and humour that exists in the entirety of a piece like Figaro - its in in my top 5 anyway. which sometimes is a moving feast at the moment its Grimes, Figaro, Tristan, Tosca, Rigoletto - not very original I know and not necessarily in that order - but they are all enduring masterpieces. Figaro is the only one that does not involve death and destruction of humankind ....eek :-)

Any other news anyone?