Opéra de Monte-Carlo

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The Opéra de Monte-Carlo is an opera company in the principality of Monaco.

With the lack of cultural diversions available in Monaco in the 1870s, Prince Charles III, along with the Societe des Bains de Mers, decided on the construction of an opera house on a high spot overlooking the Mediterranean. Initially, it was Charles III’s private theatre with the main entrance reserved for the Royal family and a private staircase taking them to their richly-adorned private box.

This was to be the Salle Garnier which opended in 1879.

During the renovation of the Salle Garnier in 2004/ 2005, the company presented operas at the Salle des Princes of the local Grimaldi Forum, a modern conference and performance centre where Les Ballets de Monte Carlo and the Monte-Carlo Philharmonic Orchestra regularly perform.

[edit] Salle Garnier

Within eighteen months, the Salle Garnier was completed under the architect Charles Garnier, who also designed the Palais Garnier in Paris. The new Salle Garnier was an exact replica in miniature of the Paris Opera House. It seats only 524. Like its predecessor, it reflects the style of the “Belle Epoque”.

It was inaugurated on January 25, 1879 with a performance by Sarah Bernhardt dressed as a nymph. The first opera performed there was Jean-Robert Planquette’s Le Chevalier Gaston on 8 February 1879, and that was followed by three additional ones in the first season.

With the influence of the first director, Jules Cohen (who was instrumental in bringing Adelina Patti) and the fortunate combination of Raoul Gunsbourg, the new director from 1883, and Princess Alice, the opera-loving American wife of Charles III’s succsor, Albert I, the company was thrust onto the world’s opera community stage. Gunsbourg remained for sixty years overseeing such premiere productions as Berlioz’s La damnation de Faust in 1893 and the first appearances in January 1894 of the Italian tenor, Francesco Tamagno in Verdi’s Otello, the title role of which he had created for the opera’s premiere in Italy.

By the early years of the twentieth century, the Salle Garnier was to see performers who included Nellie Melba and Enrico Caruso in La boheme and Rigoletto (1902); Feodor Chaliapin in the premiere of Jules Massenet’s Don Quichotte (1910), which included a long association between the company and Massenet and his operas, two of which were presented posthumously.

In addition, Tito Ruffa, Geraldine Farrar, Mary Garden, Tito Schipa, Beniamino Gigli, Claudia Muzio, Georges Thill, and Lily Pons all appeared during the early years of the opera house.

Other composers had operas presented for the first time, among them being Saint-Saëns (Helene, 1904); Mascagni (Amica, 1905); and Puccini (La Rondine, 1927). Since its inauguration, the theatre has hosted 45 world premiere productions of operas.

The “Golden Age” of the Salle Garnier has gone forever, as small companies with small houses are not able to mount productions with astronomical costs. However, the present day company presents a season of five or six operas.