Word: operas
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...opera house, spectacular though it may be, really transform a city best known for its paella and beaches into a top arts center? Can Calatrava's magnificent edifice produce the Bilbao effect - doing for Valencia what Frank Gehry's titanium-clad Guggenheim Museum did for the industrial Basque city to the north...
...Palau is certainly a worthy effort and just part of Valencia's quest, one that's even bolder than Bilbao's famous gamble. The opera house is the final piece of the immensely popular City of Arts and Sciences, a complex of beautifully integrated white buildings, most designed by Calatrava, that includes a planetarium with IMAX cinema and laser dome, a science museum, a botanical garden and Europe's biggest marine park. "An art museum draws a fairly narrow audience, while the City of Arts and Sciences appeals to a much wider range of people," says Julio...
...Calatrava's passion for the project is particularly notable because opera is, in many places, a dying art. Long-established houses like Milan's La Scala, Berlin's Deutsche Oper and even New York City's Met struggle to fill seats. The reasons for opera's slow decline are legion. Classical music critic and consultant Greg Sandow points to governments' dwindling support of the arts, a paucity of singers with the ability to perform the standard repertoire, and above all, audiences that look elsewhere for entertainment...
...Valencia make this high-stakes bet? Status has something to do with it. In a world where opera is still seen as the highest of high culture, a striking new theater immediately heralds grand ambition. "Valencians are trying for something iconic," says Nicholas Payne, director of Opera Europa, the chief organization for professional opera companies and festivals on the Continent. "They're looking at Madrid and Barcelona, and saying, 'We're just as good...
...Whatever its arriviste pretentions, Valencia may also represent a new model for successfully producing opera. A stunning new building worked for Copenhagen, where the Henning Larsen house, with its roof plated with 24-carat gold, is already a destination for both tourists and native aficionados. Oslo is currently completing its own dramatic hall, located at the edge of a fjord, that promises a pristine acoustic environment. The Palau is also taking risks on unusual performances. Classic crowd-pleasers like Don Giovanni and Richard Wagner's Ring Cycle appear in new garb: La Fura dels Baus, the avant-garde theater troupe...