Sir, – Finn McRedmond writes “opera attendance is plummeting, its core audience slowly dying, and it’s much the same for ballet and classical music too” (“Timothée Chalamet is right: no one cares about opera or ballet”, Opinion, March 12th).
One wonders when was the last time she attended an opera performance in Ireland.
The last two operas I attended – Irish National Opera’s productions of Smetana’s The Bartered Bride in Ballymun and Janáček’s The Cunning Little Vixen in Tralee – were both sold out.
If there is such a demand for opera in places one would not traditionally associate with the genre, then perhaps her pronouncements about the death of opera are a little exaggerated. – Yours, etc,
RM Block
ADRIAN SMITH,
Lecturer in music,
TU Dublin Conservatoire.
Sir, – I wish to express my sadness and disappointment at reading the recent article by Finn McRedmond.
As an opera practitioner for the past 40 years, I can announce that opera is alive and thriving in Ireland and internationally, as I am active in both areas. Recently I was delighted to attend Irish National Opera’s performance of Janáček’s The Cunning Little Vixen in the Solstice Arts Centre in Navan, which performed to a packed audience, many of whom were under the age of 20 and were audibly enjoying the performance. Last week I attended a new opera, The Theory of Flames, written by the hugely talented Dutch composer Michel van der Aa, at the Dutch National Opera in Amsterdam, as part of the Opera Forward Festival. This was similarly performed to a packed house of considerable capacity. It was a life-affirming evening, very contemporary and relevant to life today.
I can attest that Irish National Opera are ground-breaking in their outreach and education work, the likes of which did not exist when I was growing up in this country. We who work in the opera world are hard-working and far from elitist. We are driven by our passion for this beautiful art form and for me it is a joy to mentor and work with many young aspiring opera singers and pianists, both in Ireland and abroad, who strive to pursue a life in opera and to bring it to the wider public. – Yours, etc,
BRENDA HURLEY,
Maynooth,
Co Kildare.
Sir, – As a regular member of Irish opera audiences, I write in support of Fergus Sheil, artistic director of Irish National Opera, (Letters, March 14th).
Irish National Opera (INO) was launched in January 2018, bookending what was, in truth, an inauspicious period for opera here, after the demise of Opera Ireland in 2010.
During its “birthing process” there were concerns that INO might not get the sustained support of either the government or audiences to successfully revitalise and develop what is a very demanding art form.
Five years on, in 2023, despite the calamity of Covid-19, I was among a full-house for INO’s outstanding performance of Der Rosenkavalier (Richard Strauss), an opera with outrageous demands; a long cast list, a full orchestra, extravagant vocal ranges and a running time of close to four hours.
And so it has continued, where talented people, working coherently as visionaries and artists and having the confidence to collaborate with other international opera companies (such as the Royal Swedish Opera), have attained a remarkable level of excellence in less than a decade, bringing productions to audiences countrywide.
I came to opera and ballet late in life and don’t see myself as either a harpy or a “monstrously self-regarding snob”, no more than I’ve observed among the thousands of audience members I’ve sat alongside over the past eight years. – Yours, etc,
MICHAEL GANNON,
Kilkenny.
