Royal Opera House Research Articles

Model of cultural policy and the governance and management of cultural institutions: comparative analysis of three European opera houses

ABSTRACT Comparative research on cultural policies has advanced in recent decades in specifying the differences between cultural management models. However, less attention has been paid to how ways of managing large cultural institutions shape outcomes. Opera houses are a special case here. That is because they are large institutions with a long history and exhibit socio-institutional inertia, which partly explains the similarities between them regardless of their geographical and political context. However, there are also significant differences in governance modes, management and leadership styles, as well as how they respond to one of the great challenges facing opera houses in the twenty-first Century, namely social inclusion and gender inequality. This paper compares three great opera houses (Royal Opera House, Opera National de Paris, Royal Swedish Opera) belonging to different European models to assess the significance of these differences in cultural management models.

Spiritual Succor or Sacrilege? British Catholic Responses to and Interpretations of Wagner’s Parsifal

Abstract: Scholarly knowledge about the interplay of Wagnerian opera and British church history has advanced on an uneven front and has yet to reach lofty heights. Relatively little has been published about how Parsifal , Richard Wagner’s final and arguably most religious opera, was perceived in the United Kingdom. The present study begins to fill that gap by investigating how a spectrum of British Catholics diversely debated such crucial themes as the extent to which Parsifal was a Christian work, the possible mimesis of the Mass in the Holy Grail scenes, the construction of the title character as a symbolic Christ figure, and whether the staging of this work, whose spiritual content was widely acknowledged, could appropriately be performed in a secular setting like the Royal Opera House at Covent Garden.

The evolution of branding in the performing arts: A comprehensive conceptual analysis

This paper provides a comprehensive analysis of the evolution of branding in the performing arts, tracing its historical roots and examining contemporary strategies influenced by digital media and technology. The study explores the application of branding theories, such as Aaker’s Brand Equity Model and Keller’s Customer-Based Brand Equity model, to understand how performing arts organizations create and sustain strong brands. Through case studies of successful branding campaigns like the Royal Opera House and "Hamilton," the paper highlights innovative practices and challenges modern branding faces, such as content oversaturation and maintaining artistic integrity. Additionally, a conceptual framework is developed to analyze the impact of cultural, technological, and economic factors on branding evolution. Comparative insights from other industries, including entertainment, fashion, and technology, provide a broader context for understanding branding strategies. The paper concludes with practical recommendations for effective branding in the performing arts, emphasizing the importance of authenticity, digital engagement, and adaptability to technological advancements.

Who runs the arts in England? A social network analysis of arts boards

Recent research on cultural production has drawn attention to significant inequalities. This paper aims to unpack one possible explanation for these inequalities by focusing on the people with ultimate responsibility for arts institutions: the boards of directors. Using data from the UK's Companies House, it analyses the boards of Arts Council England's National Portfolio Organisations. It then “hops” to the other organisations with whom arts organisations also share board members, and their directors. While the network of NPOs is relatively sparse, with most organisations not sharing board members with any others, in the one-hop network the majority of these organisations are indirectly connected to one another. In addition to a large number of arts and cultural organisations, this network also contains a large proportion of film funding companies and financial services companies. The most central company in the network, measured by betweenness, is the Royal Opera House, followed by companies associated with significant tax advantages for their directors. Our results raise questions for the governance of culture, drawing further attention to its ties with financial institutions.

Baloch Mashkat (Muscat) and the Sultan Qaboos Era: Cultural Performance, Cosmopolitanism, and Translocal Consciousness

Baloch cultural life in Muscat is a vivid part of Oman's national landscape as it has evolved from the time the late Sultan Qaboos took power. Although often typecast as soldiers or police officers, Omani Baloch are deeply integrated into a broad spectrum of professions and social milieus. These include communities of arts and letters at the heart of the Omani cultural renaissance championed by the late Sultan and embodied in institutions such as Royal Opera House, the Muscat International Film Festival, and the Oud Hobbyists Association. The many nuances to Baloch identity have led to a plurality of social spaces, from literary forums intertwined with South Asian intellectual spheres to ceremonial contexts in which Omanis of Baloch, Peninsular Arab, and East African heritage converge. Networks of patronage and transnational circulations of songs and poetry among Baloch attest to the longevity of Western Indian Ocean circuits of cultural exchange.

“When I go my family will see my life in programmes”: Legacy giving and identity at the Royal Opera House

AbstractWith £5.5 trillion due to be transferred between generations over forthcoming decades in the UK alone, non‐profits stand to increase their income from legacy giving significantly, if they can make lasting and meaningful connections with donors. Extant research suggests that autobiographical memory may play a key role in this process. In this article, we go beyond considering autobiographical memory in general to examining how connection with a particular non‐profit, and the memories that are generated can shape individual identity. We report the results of twenty life‐history interviews with people who plan to leave a legacy to the Royal Opera House, and discuss how identity is created through a connection with opera and/or ballet in general and the Royal Opera House in particular. We then go on to explore how the strength of that connection and development of a shared identity can create a sense of symbolic immortality and influence the legacy giving decision, drawing on peak memorable experiences and nostalgia as a social emotion that connects people to what they love. We conclude by reflecting on how other non‐profits might create or stimulate such identities.

Beyond the libretto

Nowadays both intra- and interlingual surtitles are an inherent element of almost all opera produc­tions and, partly thanks to this technology, opera is now going through a renaissance. The trend of staging operas in a modernised fashion is especially popular these days, but it represents a particu­lar challenge for surtitlers. It is argued in this article that while surtitles accompanying traditional opera productions are usually intrasemiotic, as their source text is just the libretto, modernised productions often have intersemiotic surtitles. The article analyses fragments of surtitles prepared for four different operas staged in the Metropolitan Opera House, Bayerische Staatsoper and Royal Opera House. The result show that while traditionally surtitles provide the viewers with the mean­ing of the libretto, the role of intersemiotic surtitles is much more extended, as they provide the audience with more comprehensive information about the whole opera production.

Hyper reality opera [technology - arts

Opera is no longer just the fat lady singing. New technologies are bringing an old art to new audiences. The author describes her experiences in the world's first hyper-reality opera, `Current, Rising', opening at the Royal Opera House, London, in spring 2021. Your journey begins in a room called the House of Subconscious. You're wearing headphones, a small backpack containing a computer, and a VR headset. As you move freely through a dream-like virtual world, from twilight to dawn, the wind blows in your face, you drift over the sea, a city emerges from under your feet. Somewhere on the imaginary horizon, an orchestra plays while a soprano wanders around you singing. You're inside the Linbury Theatre at the Royal Opera House, London, listening to - or rather experiencing visually, aurally, and viscerally - a newly composed operatic work. The developers relied upon a readily available Windows Mixed Reality system developed by Microsoft to create this new world. The system uses computer vision to process two camera feeds from the headset, builds a model of the world around that person, and estimates their position and orientation in that world.

Performance History Revealed: The Performance Databases of Rambert and the Royal Ballet

Dance archives were instrumental in the development of the first performance databases produced in the UK. This article examines the conceptual frameworks and practical components of the performance databases created by two of them: the Rambert Archive and Royal Opera House Collections, which holds the archives of the Royal Ballet and Birmingham Royal Ballet (up to 1997). It outlines their work-based data models (contrasting these with event-based data models), the contents and cataloguing rules of their ‘work’ and ‘performance’ records, and their online presentation of the data.

The Virtual Opera House: hybrid realities in lighting design processes for large-scale opera

ABSTRACT Digital visualisation tools – virtual models – are increasingly used as part of the creative and production processes of large-scale theatre and opera. These technologies not only enable the modelling of the performance space with its scenic and lighting scenographies, but also facilitate the modelling of production processes and human relationships. Focusing on lighting at the Royal Opera House, London, I examine how digital visualisation allows designers and production teams to manipulate not only virtual space, but also virtual time. I show how the ‘Virtual Opera House’ allows multiple possible futures to be modelled, reviewed and selected. Further, the limited time available on the opera stage for lighting and technical rehearsals can be supplemented with additional, virtual stage rehearsals inserted between the physical ones: interstitial time. Away from the pressures of stage rehearsals, the lighting designer, lighting programmer and others spend time developing and nurturing the working relationships that are critical to the successful realisation of design intentions. Using primary evidence from practitioners, I demonstrate how the Virtual Opera House is not only a virtual model of the stage and physical production, but is also an environment where processes and relationships can be modelled and remodelled: a hybrid-reality collaborative environment.

Where Have All the Women Gone? On the Absence of Feminine Agency in Contemporary Productions of the Original Boris Godunov

ABSTRACT The rejection of Boris Godunov for the lack of a female part led Modest Musorgskii to revise the opera to include the historical character of Marina Mniszech. The resulting “Polish” Act has been received with mixed feelings. Bias against it is one of the reasons behind the contemporary surge of interest in the original 1869 version of the opera, as testified to by productions at the Mariiinski Theater, the Bavarian State Opera, the Royal Opera House, and the Paris Opéra. The return to the original Boris has a side effect, however, which is precisely the one the selection committee of the Imperial Theaters warned against: it represents a world devoid of female agency. In the otherwise significant production created by Ivo van Hove for Paris, this omission sits uncomfortably with the social and political values that have been articulated most clearly in the #MeToo campaign. Since Musorgskii provided an alternative, the experience of the original Boris Godunov in actual performance might stimulate a renewed interest in what has been left out. Considered from the standards of the #MeToo movement, the part of Marina Mniszech becomes significant as a reminder of the active role played by women in the historical events represented on stage. The part also resonates with the contemporary #MeToo analysis of gender roles. The character of Marina combines a desire for female autonomy with submission to patriarchal forces and could offer interesting material for a stage production that addresses the story from a modern awareness of gender roles. A comparison with van Hove’s take on Schiller’s Mary Stuart demonstrates that such awareness may be creatively productive.

Letter to Myself

Letter to Myself Mir Mahfuz Ali (bio) Dear angry one, you blow up, then storm out of my lifeleaving my body parts scattered, the limbs beside a ridge. I rush to them before the dogs tear my flesh.Collect the parts but they no longer fit, yet I feel alive in fragments. There’s always somethingthat needs fixing—broken shoulder blade, cracked skull, but who is to mend them? Time will heal me. It schooled its fingersto stitch the dismembered parts into a being with such care I feel I am whole again and attractive again to the point as if someone is ready to eat me without discovering what I amlike underneath my rescued body. [End Page 71] Mir Mahfuz Ali Mir Mahfuz Ali was born in Dhaka, Bangladesh, and studied at Essex University. He dances, acts, and has worked as a model and a tandoori chef. He has given readings and performances at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, BBC Newsnight Review, Radio 4, and the World Service. He is the winner of the 2013 Geoffrey Dearmer Prize. His first poetry collection, Midnight, Dhaka, was published in 2014 by Seren. He is now completing his second full collection. He lives with his wife and son in London. Copyright © 2020 Middlebury College Publications

Kaspar Holten’s production of Szymanowski’s King Roger: A test of ‘fidelity’

Kaspar Holten’s production of Szymanowski’s King Roger (completed in 1924) is an important realization of this complex and challenging opera. It was premiered at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden in 2015; a DVD recording of the London performances makes a detailed study of the production possible. This article is concerned with the issue of what constitutes fidelity in a director’s approach. It begins by discussing Szymanowski’s mise en scène, and outlines the main themes of King Roger and its relationship to Euripides’ Bacchae; then it engages with Holten’s interpretation, and the fascinating designs by Steffen Aarfing, which enable his vision to be realized. The lead characters – Roger and his Queen, Roxana – are both discussed with reference to how Holten illuminates Szymanowski’s drama and its music. His production raises fundamental questions about fidelity and innovation which have dominated critical discussion of many modernist and post-modernist productions not just of opera, but of ‘classics’ of the spoken theatre as well; these questions are posed in particular by Holten’s decision that Roxana should remain with Roger until the end of the opera, in violation of Szymanowski’s scenario.

Gavin Higgins and Francesca Simon, The Monstrous Child, London, Royal Opera House, Linbury Theatre, 21 February–3 March 2019

Melting blocks of ice drip from the ceiling. Sounds of wind, rain, and shrieking howls accompanied by rasping trombone pedal tones and wailing clarinet glissandi build to a cacophony of death-noises. ‘Oh, enough local colour’, retorts Hel.

Reviews

Life and Fate, adapted for the stage and directed by Lev Dodin, Maly Drama Theatre Company, Theatre Royal, Haymarket, 12 May 2018 Life is a Dream, by Kim Brandstrup, Rambert Dance Company, Sadler’'s Wells Theatre, London, 26 May 2018 New Work/New Music, The Royal Ballet, Royal Opera House, Linbury Theatre, 8 February 2019

The Royal Opera House and Covent Garden: A symbiotic and complex touristic relationship

The Royal Opera House has a longstanding and solid relationship with Covent Garden, which is an environmentally clustered urban area for tourism and culture rich in heritage, commercial ambience and provision of different types of performing arts. Located within the core of the area opposite its popular market place, its opulent main entrance faces a less visited precinct. This makes the building less visible to the area’s visitors raising questions about its role in the perception of Covent Garden. Given that current studies on flagship developments tend to focus on contemporary projects, this research aims to understand the influence that a well-established cultural flagship exerts in the perception of a popular area for tourism using the Royal Opera House in Covent Garden as a case study. To address this aim, a social constructivist approach was adopted and 306 semi-structured interviews were conducted with domestic and international visitors throughout six locations within the area to understand the role of the Opera House in the perception of Covent Garden. Findings indicate that cultural flagships tend to be stereotyped as grandiose freestanding buildings which is not the Royal Opera House’s case given Covent Garden’s urban density. Instead, its flagship status is related to the quality of its productions and its historical attachment to the area. This is rooted in the attraction of a diverse set of visitors and international talent leading to a cosmopolitan ambience and a strong sense of civic pride as the UK’s leading provider of opera and ballet productions.

The Marriage of Heaven and Hell: On the Functional Approach to Translating Libretti for Modernised Opera Productions

The present paper focuses on the issue of translating operatic libretti in the form of surtitles. This is a very specific type of translation, and it becomes even more challenging when operatic productions for which surtitles are created are modernised. In such cases the application of skopos theory proves to be the most useful and effective, even though some of its premises may be regarded as controversial. The data for the present study come from the most reputable opera houses, for example the Metropolitan Opera House or Royal Opera House, as they are known for providing their audiences with high-quality libretti translations.

Facilitating Public Access to the Arts: Applying the Motivation, Opportunity, and Ability Framework to the Case of the UK Royal Opera House

<p>In recent years, arts organizations in the UK have faced challenging times due to severe funding cuts from government and depressed box office sales during the recession. In the UK’s current cultural policy, ‘social impacts’ of the arts are highly emphasized and state interventions are intensified both in terms of finance and legitimacy. What is necessary for arts organizations to produce social impacts is their active provision of ‘deliberate extra activities’, which are generally conducted in the form of education, community, participation or outreach programs. The Royal Opera House (ROH) case study provides an apt example of how to exercise these activities effectively to deliver social impacts. Based on Rothchild’s theoretical Motivation, Opportunity, and Ability (MOA) framework, this study aims to find out how the UK Royal Opera House stimulated motivation among arts audiences and facilitated opportunities for them, thereby allowed them to translate motivation into action. The results show that the ROH implemented several specific strategies: ‘interest triggerings,’ ‘value creation and transmission,’ relationship building and management,’ and education. These strategies can motivate potential arts consumers to be familiar with classic arts, which lowers psychological barriers and stimulates intrinsic motivation to satisfy long-lasting and self-sustaining cultural needs. </p>

Reviews

Abstract The Nose, The Royal Opera House, London, November 2016 The Red Shoes, Matthew Bourne, Sadlers Wells Theatre, London, November/December 2016 Les Enfants Terribles, A Dance/Opera by Philip Glass, direction and choreography by Javier De Frutos, The Barbican, London, January 2017

Philip Venables 4.48 Psychosis, Royal Opera House at Lyric Hammersmith, London; Liza Lim Tree of Codes, Musikfabrik, Cologne Opera, Cologne

As the first Doctoral Composer-in-Residence of the Royal Opera House and Guildhall School of Music and Drama, Philip Venables has – some might say bravely – chosen to adapt 4.48 Psychosis, the last play by the late British playwright Sarah Kane. Brave for several reasons. Kane's work is renowned for its naked, sometimes brutal, expression and themes, and the nihilism and violence of her plays have caused critical uproar in the past. Moreover, her estate has until now been understandably protective of her legacy; Venables's opera, premiered in May, is the first adaptation they have permitted, and came with instructions to remain as true as possible to the text.