Opera management is the management of the processes by which
opera
Opera is a form of theatre in which music is a fundamental component and dramatic roles are taken by singers. Such a "work" (the literal translation of the Italian word "opera") is typically a collaboration between a composer and a librett ...
is delivered to audiences. It is carried out by an opera manager, also called a general manager, managing director, or intendant (UK English). A multifaceted task, it involves managing an opera company, primarily the singers and musicians who perform the operas, but in many cases also involves managing the
opera house
An opera house is a theatre building used for performances of opera. It usually includes a stage, an orchestra pit, audience seating, and backstage facilities for costumes and building sets.
While some venues are constructed specifically for o ...
in which the company performs.
Background
Opera is a multi-faceted art form involving high fixed costs and requiring complex approaches to management. In addition to the singers and musicians who form the core of the company, its production requires scenery and costumes and sometimes dancers and non-singing actors. Fixed costs in today's opera organizations—keeping many of the singers and musicians on year-round contracts, and if managing their own theatre, the cost of workers needed to create and maintain the sets and costumes as well as the cost of maintaining and running the building—combined with the costs of individual productions, make opera the most expensive of the performing arts. However, even in the 19th century when opera was largely run by individual
impresarios rather than large organisations, opera management as a
profession
A profession is a field of work that has been successfully ''professionalized''. It can be defined as a disciplined group of individuals, '' professionals'', who adhere to ethical standards and who hold themselves out as, and are accepted by ...
was characterised as "a devouror of the fortunes of the victims it has tempted by its seductions". Musicologists and opera composers have noted that today “Marketing and private sector support are generally regarded as necessary despite the fact that many opera companies must simultaneously strive to attain public funding as ‘high art’ that embodies universally valuable
cultural heritage
Cultural heritage is the heritage of tangible and intangible heritage assets of a group or society that is inherited from past generations. Not all heritages of past generations are "heritage"; rather, heritage is a product of selection by soci ...
.”
Frederick Gye
Frederick Gye (the younger) (1810–1878) was an English businessman and opera manager who for many years ran what is now the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden.
Life
Gye, son of Frederick Gye (the elder), was born at Finchley, Middlesex, in 1810 ...
, who turned the
Royal Italian Opera
The Royal Opera House (ROH) is an opera house and major performing arts venue in Covent Garden, central London. The large building is often referred to as simply Covent Garden, after a previous use of the site. It is the home of The Royal O ...
in Covent Garden into one of London's premiere opera houses in the 19th century, and who shaped the careers of many famous singers, described opera management as a "dreadful business".
Venice and the development of opera as a business
The
earliest operas were privately performed and financed by the noble families who commissioned them, often to mark great court occasions. One such example was
Marco da Gagliano's ''
La Flora'', performed in 1628 at the Medici Palace in Florence to celebrate the marriage of
Margherita de' Medici
Margherita de' Medici (31 May 1612 – 6 February 1679) was Duchess of Parma and Piacenza by her marriage to Odoardo Farnese, Duke of Parma. Margherita was regent of Piacenza in 1635, and regent of the entire duchy from 1646 until 1648 during ...
and
Odoardo Farnese, Duke of Parma.
Grand Duchess Maria Maddalena, the wife of
Cosimo II de' Medici and the mother of the bride, took an active role in the planning of the production. She secured the services of the musicians and singers, attended the rehearsals, and according to musicologist Kelley Harness, may well have contributed to the development of the plot as well.
Publicly performed operas first appeared in
Venice
Venice ( ; it, Venezia ; vec, Venesia or ) is a city in northeastern Italy and the capital of the Veneto Regions of Italy, region. It is built on a group of 118 small islands that are separated by canals and linked by over 400 ...
during the
Carnival season of 1637. This was facilitated by the large number of public theatres already present in the city which originally served for the production of plays. They were built by noble families such as the
Grimani,
Tron, and
Vendramin. The rebuilt
Teatro San Cassiano The Teatro San Cassiano (or Teatro di San Cassiano and other variants) in Venice was the world’s first public opera theatre, inaugurated as such in 1637. The first mention of its construction dates back to 1581. The name with which it is best know ...
, sponsored by the Tron family, was the first in the world specifically devoted to opera. Performances of ''L'Andromeda'' in 1637 by librettist
Benedetto Ferrari
Benedetto Ferrari (ca. 1603 – 1681) was an Italian composer, particularly of opera, librettist, and theorbo player.
Ferrari was born in Reggio nell'Emilia. He worked in Rome (1617–1618), Parma (1619–1623), and possibly in Modena at some ...
and composer
Francesco Manelli
Francesco Manelli (Mannelli) ( 1595 – 1667) was a Roman Baroque composer, particularly of opera, and a theorbo player. He is most well known for his collaboration with fellow Roman composer Benedetto Ferrari in bringing commercial opera to Ve ...
marked the theatre's first commercially produced opera. In the majority of cases the
patrician Venetian owners profited from their theatres by renting them out to others who produced and managed the opera performances. The key figure in the actual production of the operas was the impresario, who assembled the singers, musicians and creative team and made the business and artistic decisions. Sometimes the impresarios were hired by the theatre renters and their backers. On other occasions the impresario was also one of the investors and the renter of the theatre. The ''cassier'' (cashier) was in charge the financial side of the production, including handling the payments and receipts. While the ''cassier'' was sometimes a separate member of the management team, in many instances the impresario also acted as the ''cassier''.
[Glixon, Beth Lise and Glixon, Jonathan Emmanuel (2006)]
''Inventing the Business of Opera: The Impresario and His World in Seventeenth-Century Venice''
p. 4. Oxford University Press. One of the most famous impresarios of the day was
Marco Faustini who managed several Venetian opera houses in the course of his career.
See also
*
Arts administration
*
Theater manager, also called general manager, managing director, or intendant (UK English)
Notes and references
Further reading
*Rosselli, John (1984)
''The Opera Industry in Italy from Cimarosa to Verdi: The Role of the Impresario'' Cambridge University Press. {{ISBN, 0521278678
External links
''International Journal of Arts Management''
Management by type
Arts occupations
Occupations in music