They are often built by the biggest names, cost far more than other buildings (and require perpetual subsidies once completed), and can take a decade to construct −so where did this herd of white elephants come from?
Although few people ever set foot in an opera house, they are central presences in our cities, and − in Europe, at least − they make heavy demands on our public resources.
It’s remarkable that long after the medium’s 19th-century heyday, and despite its minimal relevance to the populace at large, opera houses are once more considered the ultimate prestige projects. There are examples by César Pelli in Miami, Daniel Libeskind in Dublin, Norman Foster in Dallas (and another in Astana), Paul Andreu in Beijing and Shanghai, Zaha Hadid in Guangzhou, and Valencia has a Santiago Calatrava-designed building that looks like the severed head of a Power Ranger. Despite relatively small audiences (only two per cent of Americans went to the opera in 2008, and even Italian audiences are dwindling), the first decade of the millennium saw the completion of at least 20 opera houses all over the world. Since its birth in the Renaissance, opera has been claimed as a reincarnation of community-forming Greek drama, while being used to represent the power of the state − whether feudal, dictatorial or democraticĬontrary to all expectations, the fat lady has not yet sung for opera.
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