Dear Friends and Colleagues,
This spring has been a busy one for Opera Europa!
Our Co-productions Joint Forum meeting in Helsinki brought together five forums to examine the many issues surrounding co-production. Gita Kadambi and Thomas de Mallet Burgess, with their teams led by Katja Tammela, Katja Karjalainen Tapio Säkkinen, Javier Torrès and Timo Tuovila, were marvellous hosts, and performances of Festen and the premiere of Pulssi provided memorable evenings in the theatre.
Many interesting points emerged during our days together. Co-productions that were once typically limited to two partners are now increasingly extending to three or four, while budget restrictions have led to a rise in rentals.
It was also fascinating to learn about the design and construction of the Fafner costume for Siegfried at the Royal Opera House, and the ways in which such an extraordinarily elaborate costume could be produced sustainably. Another topic of great interest was the synchronisation of music and machinery in Innocence. Kristiina Kokko, State Secretary, spoke eloquently about opera not only as a cultural asset, but also as a source of innovation and a force for unity and bridge-building.
After Helsinki, some of us crossed the Baltic Sea to Tallinn, where Ott Maaten and his team welcomed us for the 12th Opera Management Course. The team leaders — Lilli Paasikivi, Henning Ruhe and Cormac Simms — were in top form, while the 24 participants demonstrated clearly that opera is in very good hands for the future. One of the great strengths of this course is always the quality of its guest speakers, who this year included Kasper Holten with a keynote on artistic vision and leadership, alongside Alexandra Stampler-Brown (financial management), Maike Maiste (human resources), Martin Bonhard (fundraising), and Sophie Gavriloff (marketing, communications and PR).
We are also advancing with our application for the European Heritage Label, and we strongly believe that receiving such recognition can only strengthen our cause.
I would also like to remind you of the importance of completing the annual survey currently being circulated. We all depend on this information and the resulting analysis to support our advocacy efforts.
Our next conference will take place at the beginning of November in Brno during the Janáček Festival, and it promises to be an exciting programme. It will offer opportunities to discuss artistic collaborations, based on Operabook’s Future New Productions database, as well as how we make the case for Opera.
Finally, a huge thank you to Hannah Griffiths, leaving the Opera Europa team after having significantly contributed to our research and advocacy efforts, to join our member Opera North in Leeds.
We are grateful for our members faithful support as our association keeps growing – both in number of companies we represent and in the services we provide. I wish you all a wonderful summer, whether relaxing or producing!
Karen Stone
Executive Director