Why cities are falling for a night at the opera

By ADRIAN MOURBY

Singapore unveiled the world's newest new opera house, on its Esplanade waterfront, late last year. Yuxi in China follows suit this year, as will Valencia in Spain, Apeldoorn in the Netherlands, and Paducah in Kentucky.

Never has there been such a period for opera-house building.

At the moment, Copenhagen, Oslo, Seattle and Toronto all have new opera houses under construction; St Petersburg and Dublin are both currently drawing up plans; while Dallas has recently announced its intention to have a new opera house by Norman Foster in 2008.

Even Cardiff, which in 1995 famously rejected Zaha Hadid's "crystal necklace" opera house in favour of a new rugby stadium, has begun building a new lyric theatre.

The last time Europe saw such an expansion was in the latter half of the 19th century, when, according to the historian Eric Hobsbawm, "the great collective status symbols of theatre and opera arose in the centres of capital cities - the focus of town-planning, as in Paris (1860) and Vienna (1869), visible as cathedrals in Dresden (1869), invariably gigantic and monumentally elaborate as in Barcelona (from 1862) or Palermo (from 1875)".

A century before, opera houses in the time of Mozart, Gluck and Haydn had been very different, either places of low entertainment or an extension of the court.

It wasn't until the great ethnic upheavals of the 19th century that the opera house emerged as national status symbol.

In 1871, Budapest's Magyar Allami Operahaz was constructed exclusively by Hungarian craftsmen, while in 1876, work on Prague's Narodni Divadlo was funded entirely by the public who shared a desire to see the works of Smetana performed within a wholly Czech context.

Their intentions were obvious. Both were advertising their credentials for nationhood.

In the 20th century, much opera-house building went into reconstruction, as Cologne, Dresden, Berlin, Vienna and Milan all repaired the ravages of war, but newly conceived houses did begin to emerge in the second half, most notably Sydney, which stunned the world in 1973 with Jorn Utzon's five revolutionary arches.

What has happened since, however, has been even more extraordinary, as city after city has lined up to create new homes for an artform once thought passe.

Within five years, Paris opened its Bastille (1989), Athens unveiled its Megaron (1991), Glyndebourne was rebuilt (1992), and Helsinki finally moved opera out of the old Russian garrison theatre and into a distinctly Finnish home (1993).

With the increasing popularity of opera, opera houses have become prestige projects that lend status to the places in which they are built.

Whereas once the opera house represented nationhood, now its role seems to be to dignify the city that builds it. It has acquired a very political profile.

Decisions about where to locate them frequently result in battles between producers who wish to be where the audience is, and politicians who believe it should spearhead urban renewal.

In Oslo in the 1990s, the battle raged long and hard before Norwegian Opera's new home became the focal point of dockland regeneration. It's the same in Cardiff and Goteborg.

Inevitably, this important role as civic statement has influenced its design.

Gone is the 19th-century concept of palatial houses. So is the 20th century's brutalism.

Opera houses these days tend to blend in with their locale, as psychological accessibility becomes as important as disabled access.

Craig Dykers, who designed Oslo's new opera house, believes an element of circumspection has also arisen, out of opera's wish to accommodate the non-opera-going public.

"Administrators today place strong emphasis on shops and restaurants to lure the public. People may well visit the site of the opera with no intention of attending the opera."

- INDEPENDENT