Ioan Holender, director of the Vienna State Opera, got right to the point in the keynote address on the first day of the conference: "The crisis cannot give us a reason to make bad productions," he said. Nor can opera houses write off declining ticket sales to the crisis, he added.
Paying attention to the needs of the audience has become more important, as the audience, not sponsors or marketing, still brings in the most revenue, Holender said. "The packaging is important [for the audience], but more important is what is inside," he added.
Peter de Caluwe, who heads La Monnaie in Brussels, underlined the necessity of cooperation. Opera is the most European of art forms, the history of which Europe's cultural nations have created together. Opera Europa wants to continue this noble tradition, offering an exchange of experience as well as advice for an art form whose future is in danger. Renewing the repertoire, speaking to an international audience, cooperating, and integrating the traditions of opera performances in Central and Eastern Europe with those in Western Europe are the steps that Opera Europa is taking to take opera through the crisis, he said.
Waldemar Dabrovski, director of the Polish National Opera, used the example of Don Giovanni to illustrate the tradition of pan-European opera. The libretto for Don Giovanni was written by an Italian, who used a French play based on a Spanish legend. Composed by Mozart, the opera premiered at the German theatre in Prague.
With the exception of their budgets, the opera houses in Warsaw and in other big Central European cities are the same as those in Western Europe, Dabrovski said. Even this time of crisis is a paradise compared to the period under the communist dictatorship, he added.
Andrejs Zagars, director of the Riga Opera House, noted that singers and conductors from the former East Bloc have found their place among the opera houses of the West. He stressed the importance of co-productions and guests productions, especially as fewer people travel because of the crisis.
Balázs Kovalik, artistic director of the Hungarian State Opera, said the opera's management was committed to cooperation with foreign opera houses.
Opera Europa currently serves 110 member companies from 33 different countries. Next year, the organisation will hold its spring conference in Rotterdam and its autumn conference in Munich.
Author: (vd) / Source: Fidelio
