Damascus Opera House
Encyclopedia
Damascus Opera House is the national opera house of Syria
Syria
Syria , officially the Syrian Arab Republic , is a country in Western Asia, bordering Lebanon and the Mediterranean Sea to the West, Turkey to the north, Iraq to the east, Jordan to the south, and Israel to the southwest....

. It is located in central Damascus, on the Umayyad Square
Umayyad Square
Ummayyad Square is a large and important square in Damascus, Syria. It connects the city center with several important highways and areas. The name refers to the Umayyad Caliphate when Damascus was the capital.-Buildings on the Umayyad Square:...

. It was inaugurated on May 7, 2004.

History

Damascus already had an opera house from the 1900s. During the French colonial period Shahbandar
Shahbandar
Shah Bandar or Shahbandar or Shahbunder or Shahbundar or Shāhbandar) is located in Thatta District, Sindh, Pakistan.- History :Shah Bandar was a prominent trading port of Sindh during the Soomra and Kalhora dynasties...

's People's Party held their inaugural meeting at the old Damascus Opera House in 1925. Hafez al-Assad
Hafez al-Assad
Hafez ibn 'Ali ibn Sulayman al-Assad or more commonly Hafez al-Assad was the President of Syria for three decades. Assad's rule consolidated the power of the central government after decades of coups and counter-coups, such as Operation Wappen in 1957 conducted by the Eisenhower administration and...

 planned the opera house early in his rule, but work did not recommence until the 2000s and Assad's son Bashar and his wife, opened Al Assad opera house in 2004.

The new Damascus Opera House

The opera house is a part of a building complex along with Higher Institute for Dramatic Arts, the Higher Institute for Music and the Ballet School, overlooking a multipurpose inner yard. The complex spreads over an area of around 350,000
m2 may mean:*Square metre, an SI measure of area*m2 , the ambient project of German electronic musician and DJ Mathis MootzM2 may mean:*M squared, a measure of laser beam quality*M2 , by Marcus Miller...

. It faces the al-Assad National Library
Al-Assad National Library
Al-Assad Library is the national library of Syria. It was established in Damascus in 1984 'to gather all books and daily issues in addition to all kinds of literature connected with our "ancestral cultural legacy", then to sort out these materials to serve researchers and scholars and benefit...

 and the Syrian Television
Syrian Television
Syrian Television is the official television broadcaster of Syria. It was formed in 1960, when Syria and Egypt were part of the United Arab Republic...

 building.

The building

The building consists of five levels. Each one includes a large foyer used for breaks and reception purposes. It includes three auditoriums, namely the Opera Theater, the Drama Theater and the Multipurpose Hall. They are supplemented by rehearsal and warm-up spaces as well as vidette rooms.

The Opera theatre

The Opera Theater holds a capacity of 1,331 seats distributed over a ground auditorium, 2 balconies and 20 boxes. Dimensions of the proscenium arch are 9×10 meters, and total depth of the stage is 34 meters. The orchestra pit can hold 110 musicians.

The Drama theatre

A middle-sized hall that holds 663 seats. This hall is distinguished by its round stage that sticks out into the theatre, and that is equipped with two movable side platforms. The stage is equipped with ground holes that lead to the backstage area through tunnels.

The Multipurpose Hall

It consists of a ground hall and two balconies and can hold up to 237 seats. This hall is used for different kinds of activities such as short plays, experimental drama presentations, small music recitals, cinema shows and lectures.

The Damascus Opera Company

Aside from visiting foreign artists, the company produced The Marriage of Figaro in 2010. The current (2011) director of the House and Company is Maria Arnaout, producer of Gianni Schicchi, An international Oriental Music Festival and a Syrian version of the musical Oliver!
Oliver!
Oliver! is a British musical, with script, music and lyrics by Lionel Bart. The musical is based upon the novel Oliver Twist by Charles Dickens....

 casting orphans after the model of El Sistema
El Sistema
El Sistema is a publicly financed voluntary sector music education program in Venezuela, originally called Social Action for Music. Its official name is Fundación del Estado para el Sistema Nacional de las Orquestas Juveniles e Infantiles de Venezuela, , and sometimes translated to English as...

's work with street children in Venezuela. So far the opera house has not included in its programmes opera in Arabic
Opera in Arabic
The history of opera in the Arabic speaking world is generally viewed to have started from the premiere of Verdi's Aida in Cairo at the Khedivial Opera House in 1871, though Verdi's opera was sung in Italian.-Western operas sung in Arabic:...

 or art song in Arabic
Art song in Arabic
The western classical-style art song has attracted many songs on translations of Arabic texts, notably by composers of French melodies and German Lieder, but few art songs sung in Arabic....

.

External links


www.damascusopera.com

www.facebook.com Damascus Opera House
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