Opera In The Open
This August the Dublin City Council Arts Office will be hosting Opera In The Open. Four operas will be performed during the month from 1 pm to 2 pm during lunch in the open air amphitheatre.
The first opera, The Gondoliers, will take place on the 4th of August. The Gondoliers was written by the composer Arthur Sullivan and first premiered in 1889. An interesting fact about The Gondoliers is that it was supposed to be performed on the night of the Easter Rising in 1916 in the Gaiety Theatre, but it was understandingly enough cancelled.
The second opera is Acis and Galatea by Handel and will take place on the 11th of August. Acis and Galatea also has a history with Dublin. It was performed at the Music Hall in Crow Street in 1734 and then again in 1742 at the Musick Hall in Fishamble Street.
Handel who was in Dublin at the time also directed The Messiah a few months later. On the 18th of August Johann Strauss II’s Die Fledermaus comes to the open air stage with a twisted love story. This is a fairy with a happy ending.
A husband nearly cheats on his wife at the Prince’s ball. Eisenstein does not recognise his wife’s disguise and seduces her. He is on the run after punching a policeman. Trying to escape a jail sentence he decides to go to the Prince’s party and is followed there by his wife and their maid.
The last opera is one by Tchaikovsky. Eugene Onegin takes place on the 25th of August. It is an opera based on a novel by Alexander Pushkin and was first performed in Moscow in 1879. This is a love story as well.
Two sisters, one engaged to be married, her fiance and his friend Onegin takes the lead Eugene Onegin. Tatyana falls in love with her sister’s fiance’s friend who comes to visit, but he won’t return her love and tells her this in a letter.
He dances with her sister, but his friend Lensky gets angry and duels Onegin and is shot dead. Tatyana meets Onegin many years later, he sends her a letter, telling her that he now wants to know her better, but she is married and decides that she won’t rekindle her love for him.
4th August 2016 – The Gondoliers
11th August 2016 – Acis and Galatea
18th August 2016 – Die Fledermaus
25th August 2016 – Eugene Onegin
