2020 has undoubtedly been a challenging year, and it is greatly encouraging to see opera companies celebrating milestones and gaining recognition for their work.
On 30 November, Oper! Magazine held the second edition of the Oper! Awards. Staatsoper Hannover won Best Opera House. La Monnaie’s Macbeth Underworld won Best World Premiere, and Opéra national de Paris’ Les Indes Galantes Best Performance. Opera Vlaanderen’s Der Schmied von Gent won Best Set and Best Costume Designs.
Opernwelt named both Oper Frankfurt and Grand Théâtre de Genève Opernhaus des Jahres, and rewarded Wiener Staatsoper, Bayerische Staatsoper and Royal Danish Theatre for their commissions with Uraufführung des Jahres. The Orchestrea of the Bayerische Staatsoper won Orchester des Jahres.
Bergen National Opera’s This Evening’s Performance is Not Cancelled, directed by Zoe Irvine, brought together performances by Opera Ballet Vlaanderen/Muziektheater Transparant, The Airport Society, Teatro Real, Dutch National Opera/Holland Festival, Grand Théâtre de Genève, Staatsoper Hannover, Wuppertaler Bühnen and Garsington Opera. The project won the Creativity Prize at the 2020 Creative Edinburgh Awards.
Opéra Comique’s DVD of Hamlet, conducted by Louis Langrée, staged by Cyril Teste and featuring Stéphane Degout and Sabine Devieilhe, won the Diapason d’Or for the year 2020.
The second edition of the The Carmen Mateu Young Artist European Award has just been launched by Festival Castell de Peralada. This year’s selection is for opera composers. The prize will be a total of 30.000€ for the commissioning of a composition to be premiered at the Festival Castell Peralada. The call is open until 28 February 2021.
FEDORA prizes - Congratulations to the 4 winners!
Ghent-based LOD Muziektheater won the FEDORA-GENERALI Prize for Opera for their project Woman at Point Zero by composer Bushra El-Turk, librettist Stacy Hardy, to be staged by Laila Soliman with video by Aida Elkashef. Co-producers include Opera Ballet Vlaanderen, Festival d’Aix-en-Provence, Royal Opera House Covent Garden.
The FEDORA-VAN CLEEF & ARPELS Prize for Ballet was awarded to LIGHT Bach dances (working title) by Hofesh Shechter Company in co-production with Royal Danish Opera. Hofesh Shechter and John Fulljames will co-direct the production.
The second edition of the FEDORA Education Prize goes to Birmingham Opera Company’s Going for Gold, in which Graham Vick will work with newly appointed music director Alpesh Chauhan and Reisz Amos as artistic associate. In spring 2020 their crowdfunding campaign was backed by the Kiri Te Kanawa Foundation.
Finnish National Opera & Ballet’s Laila – Immersive Installation is a project carried by Ekho Collective with Esa-Pekka Salonen and dramaturge Paula Vesala, and won the first FEDORA Digital Prize with the support of Kearney.
The application for the next FEDORA Prizes closed on 7 December.
Opening of sublime NOVAT Opera & Ballet
The Novosibirsk State Opera and Ballet Theatre is the largest musical theatre in Russai. It has always been in the vanguard of cultural life in Russia, ranking among the best musical companies in the country.The theatre building is the main architectural symbol of Novosibirsk, the capital of Siberia.
The Novosibirsk Opera and Ballet Theatre opened on 12 May 1945 with Glink's opera Ivan Susanin. During its first season, the theatre presented eight premiers: seven operas and its first ballet Le Corsaire by Adolphe Adam.
In 2015 the theatre received a new name - NOVAT and in the past few years it has undergone major renovations, and now it has two comfortable multi-purpose venues supplied with the most advanced lighting and sound equipment: the Grand Stage Hall is designed to host up to 1449 spectators, while the Small Stage Hall holds 321 seats.
In 2020 the theatre celebrated its 75th anniversary. That occasion was marked with the premiere of Balanchine's Jewel and Tchaikovsky's Iolanta. Several concerts featuring world opera and ballet stars has also been scheduled for the anniversary year, but were postponed to 2021 due to the pandemic outbreak.
While preserving and developing the traditions of academic art, NOVAT constantly searches for new ways to reach its audience and introduces fresh artistic solutions aimed at grooming the next generation of theatre-goers. This call is answered by the theatre projects Open NOVAT designed for teenagers and NOVAT for kids specially developed for the youngest members of the audience.
One of the key aspects of NOVAT’s work these days is maintaining a live conversation with Russian and global cultural communities. The theatre studies the work of major musical companies engaging best opera and ballet artists, tutors and musicians from Russia and Europe. In order to develop professional international relationships and to facilitate artistic experience exchange, NOVAT joined the international association Opera Europa in 2017.