Opera entertainment in Europe
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Teatro dell'Opera di Roma
After seeing the functional and Fascist-era exterior, the interior of Rome's premier opera house – all plush red and gilt – is a stunning surprise. This theatre has an impressive history: it premiered Puccini's Tosca, and Maria Callas sang here. Built in 1880, it was given a Fascist makeover in the 1920s. Contemporary productions don't always match the splendour of the setting, but you may get lucky. Tickets for the ballet cost anywhere between €12 and €80; for the opera you'll be forking out between €23 and €150.
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Ooppera Talo
Opera, ballet and classical concerts are held here, though not during summer. Performances of the Finnish National Opera are subtitled in Finnish.
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Opera & Ballet Theatre
The main venue for classical dance and musical performances.
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Opera House
Enjoys a worldwide reputation.
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Staatsoper
The Staatsoper is the premiere opera and classical-music venue in Vienna. Built between 1861 and 1869 by August Siccardsburg and Eduard van der Nüll, it initially revolted the Viennese public and Habsburg royalty and quickly earned the nickname ‘stone turtle’. Both architects took it the worst possible way: van der Nüll hanged himself and Siccardsburg died of a heart attack two months later. Neither saw the Staatsoper’s first staged production. This shocked Franz Josef to such an extent that he kept his official comments from then on to: ‘It was very nice. I enjoyed it very much.’
Despite the frosty reception, its opening concert was Mozart’s Don Giovanni and…
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Copenhagen Opera House
This state-of-the-art opera house features two stages, the Main Stage and a smaller venue, Takkeløftet. The repertoire runs the gamut from classic to contemporary opera, as well as the odd curve ball like a performance by Elvis Costello or something from the Jazz Festival. Productions usually sell out way in advance but any unsold tickets are offered at half-price at the Opera House box office from 6pm on the night of the performance. Alternatively, many come just to eat in the panoramic Franco-Danish restaurant or the ground-floor cafe, or to explore the building on a guided tour. The tours run Saturdays and Sundays at 9.30am and 4.30pm (100kr).
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Bayerische Staatsoper
Considered one of the best opera companies in the world, the Bavarian State Opera puts the emphasis on Mozart, Strauss and Wagner but doesn't shy away from early baroque pieces by Monteverdi and others of the period. In summer it hosts the prestigious Opernfestspiele. Performances are at the Nationaltheater in the Residenz and often sell out. The opera's house band is the Bayerisches Staatsorchester, in business since 1523 and thus Munich's oldest orchestra. It's currently under the capable helm of Kent Nagano, who occasionally shakes up the tried-and-true repertory with contemporary and avant-garde works.
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Musica a Palazzo
Hang on to your wineglass and brace for impact: in palace salons, the soprano’s high notes might make you fear for your glassware, and thundering baritones reverberate in the base of the spine. The drama unfolds during 1½ hours of selected arias from Verdi to Rossini, progressing from receiving-room overtures to a parlour overlooking the Grand Canal, a Tiepolo-ceilinged dining room and heartbreaking finales in the bedroom.
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London Coliseum
The Coliseum is home to the English National Opera (ENO), celebrated for making opera modern and relevant; all operas here are sung in English. After several years in the wasteland, the ENO has been receiving better reviews and welcoming much bigger audiences since the arrival of music director Edward Gardner. The building, built in 1904 and lovingly restored 100 years later, is very impressive. Five hundred £10-and-under tickets are available for all weekday performances.
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Gelikon Opera
Named after famous Mt Helicon, home to the muses and inspiration for musicians, this early-1990s opera company is unique in Moscow for its innovative, even experimental, opera performances. Director Dmitry Bertman is known for ‘combining musical excellence with artistic risk’, according to one local dramaturge. The Gelikon’s 250-seat theatre provides an intimate setting that allows for some interaction between the performers and the audience.
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Stanislavsky & Nemirovich-Danchenko Musical Theatre
This is an opera and ballet company with a similar classical repertoire to the Novaya Opera and high-quality performances. This historic company was founded when two legends of the Moscow theatre scene – Konstantin Stanislavsky and Vladimir Nemirovich-Danchenko – joined forces in 1941. Their newly created theatre became a workshop for applying the innovative dramatic methods of the Moscow Art Theatre to opera and ballet.
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Taras Shevchenko National Opera Theatre
This is a lavish theatre (1899–1901) and a performance here is a grandiose affair. True imbibers of Ukrainian culture should not miss a performance of Zaporozhets za Dunaem (Zaporizhzhyans Beyond the Danube), a sort of operatic, purely Ukrainian version of Fiddler on the Roof. The opera, which plays roughly twice a month, is in Ukrainian, but has plenty of music, dance and colourful costumes to entertain all.
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Korn/Ferry Opera Holland Park
This is Ye Olde Englande, with picnics on the grass, opera on stage and frightfully posh surroundings. Sit under the 800-seat canopy, which is temporarily erected every summer for a nine-week season in the middle of Holland Park, and enjoy the fabulous setting and good performances. The program mixes crowd pleasers like Verdi and Humperdinck with rare (even obscure) works and attracts a diverse audience.
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Den Norske Opera
Den Norske Opera is Oslo’s opera company and stages opera, ballet and classical concerts every month, except for July. It performs in the city’s new Opera House at Bjørvika, complete with humidified air for resonance and screens with subtitles in eight different languages on the back of each seat. More casual concerts in the public roof garden are also planned.
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Novaya Opera
This theatre company was founded in 1991 by Mayor Luzhkov and artistic director Evgeny Kolobov. Maestro Kolobov himself stated, ‘we do not pretend to be innovators in this beautiful and complicated genre of opera’. As such, the ‘New Opera’ stages the old classics, and does it well. The gorgeous, modern opera house is set amid the lovely Hermitage Gardens.
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Opéra Comique
This century-old hall has premiered many important French operas and continues to host classic and less-known works.
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Vlaamse Opera
A stunning building and a fitting place to hear a performance by the highly regarded Koninklijke Vlaamse Opera (Royal Flemish Opera). Built in 1907, the building's majestic façade is unfortunately diminished by the mirrored monstrosity built next to it in the 1960s. Still, the marbled interior is sumptuous and the quality of the performances superb.
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Deutsche Oper
The German Opera was founded by local citizens in 1912 as a counterpoint to the royal opera (today’s Staatsoper) on Unter den Linden. The original building was destroyed in WWII and rebuilt by 1961 as a huge, modernist venue with seating for nearly 1900 people. It boasts a repertory of around 70 operas, which are all sung in their original language.
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Opernhaus
The main venue for opera.
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Philharmonie Luxembourg Grande-Duchesse Joséphine-Charlotte
The Philharmonie is Luxembourg's new concert venue, a stunning oval job that offers jazz, classical and opera, and that has imbued life into boring Kirchberg. The glass building is immediately obvious on the right once across the Red Bridge. Take bus 125 or 192 from Gare Centrale or Place Hamilius to the stop 'Fort Belaimont'.
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Teatro Real
After spending €100 million-plus on a long rebuilding project, the Teatro Real is as technologically advanced as any venue in Europe, and is the city’s grandest stage for elaborate operas, ballets and classical music. The cheapest seats are so far away you’ll need a telescope, although the sound quality is consistent throughout.
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Staatstheater Nuremberg
Nuremberg's magnificent theatre complex consists of the Art Nouveau Opernhaus (opera house), the Schauspielhaus (drama theatre) and the Kammerspiele (chamber plays); the latter two also feature contemporary productions. The Nürnberger Philharmoniker also performs here.
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Folkoperan
Immensely popular and internationally renowned, Folkoperan gives opera a thoroughly modern overhaul with its intimate, cutting-edge and sometimes controversial productions of both classic and contemporary works. Book weeks ahead as seats sell out quickly. Check the website for booking details.
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Budapest Operetta
This theatre presents operettas, which are always a riot, especially campy ones such as the Queen of the Csárdás by Imre Kálmán, with their over-the-top staging and costumes. There’s an interesting bronze statue of Kálmám outside the main entrance.
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Grand Théâtre
Designed by Victor Louis (of Chartres Cathedral fame), the 18th-century Grand Théâtre stages operas, ballets and concerts of orchestral and chamber music. Guided behind-the-scenes tours of the building (€3) are possible on Wednesday and Saturday afternoons at 3pm, 4pm and 5pm.
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