Acoustical design of the opera house of the New National Theater, Tokyo, Japan

The Opera of the National Theater in Belgrade was founded in 1920, but it is well known that opera performances were held long before its official opening. Despite the fact that this is the sole opera house in Belgrade (and one of the only two in Serbia), as well as the fact that it did not face any strong audience fluctuation, it is unusual that no one ever tried to investigate and profile its audience. During the last decades we were witnessing the popularization of the opera via various medias, as well as development and extention of the music industry, which surely changed its social status. The aim of the investigation that is going to be presented is to discover if this social life of opera changed its audience and does it still consists of - according to stereotypes - elderly, high educated individuals of certain professions and high material standards, i.e. at which level the opera is present in the private and public sphere of their lives.

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Review: Inventing the Opera House: Theater Architecture in Renaissance and Baroque Italy, by Eugene J. Johnson

Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians ◽

10.1525/jsah.2020.79.4.482 ◽

2020 ◽

Vol 79 (4) ◽

pp. 482-484

Author(s):

Michael Forsyth

Keyword(s):

Opera House

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National Theater in 1920-ies as Tool of Soviet Propaganda

Nauchnyy dialog ◽

10.24224/2227-1295-2018-5-194-205 ◽

2018 ◽

pp. 194-205

Author(s):

M. S. Gapeyeva ◽

Keyword(s):

National Theater

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Saskatchewan's Last Opera House: Hanley 1912-1982

Theatre Research in Canada ◽

10.3138/tric.3.2.137 ◽

1982 ◽

Vol 3 (2) ◽

pp. 137-148

Author(s):

Patrick B. O'Neill

Keyword(s):

Opera House

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The Repertory of the Italian Court Opera in Berlin, 1740–1786

The Oxford Handbook of the Operatic Canon ◽

10.1093/oxfordhb/9780190224202.013.3 ◽

2020 ◽

pp. 74-92

Author(s):

John Mangum

Keyword(s):

Economic Effects ◽

Catching Up ◽

Opera Seria ◽

Opera House

This chapter shows how a unique canonic repertory of opera seria evolved in Berlin’s Italian Court Opera under the leadership of King Friedrich II of Prussia (Frederick the Great). Thirty-one works by Johann Adolf Hasse and Carl Heinrich Graun were produced from 1740 to 1756 and then revived during the subsequent three decades, until the king’s death in 1786. Moreover, four new operas written in the antique style were produced by the theater’s director, Johann Friedrich Agricola. Even though the economic effects of the Seven Years War played a role in limiting the production of new operas, the repertory evolved in large part due to the king’s deep commitment to the old works and to his authority in selecting each year’s repertory and casting the singers. This chapter is paired with Katherine Hambridge’s “Catching up and getting ahead: The opera house as temple of art in Berlin c. 1800.”

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Acoustic Reconstruction of Eszterháza Opera House Following New Archival Research

Applied Sciences ◽

10.3390/app10248817 ◽

2020 ◽

Vol 10 (24) ◽

pp. 8817

Author(s):

Lamberto Tronchin ◽

Francesca Merli ◽

Marco Dolci

Keyword(s):

3D Model ◽

18Th Century ◽

Second World War ◽

World War ◽

National Library ◽

Acoustic Parameters ◽

Speech Transmission ◽

The Will ◽

Opera House ◽

Second World

The Eszterháza Opera House was a theatre built by the will of the Hungarian Prince Nikolaus Esterházy in the second half of the 18th century that had to compete in greatness and grandeur against Austrian Empire. The composer that inextricably linked his name to this theatre was Haydn that served the prince and composed pieces for him for many years. The Opera House disappeared from the palace complex maps around 1865 and was destroyed permanently during the Second World War. This study aims to reconstruct the original shape and materials of the theatre, thanks to the documents founded by researchers in the library of the Esterházy family at Forchtenstein, the Hungarian National Library, and analyze its acoustic behavior. With the 3D model of the theatre, acoustic simulations were performed using the architectural acoustic software Ramsete to understand its acoustical characteristics and if the architecture of the Eszterháza Opera House could favor the Prince’s listening. The obtained results show that the union between the large volume of the theatre and the reflective materials makes the Opera House a reverberant space. The acoustic parameters are considered acoustically favorable both for the music and for the speech transmission too. Moreover, the results confirm that the geometry and the shape of the Eszterháza Opera House favored the Prince’s view and listening, amplifying onstage voices and focusing the sound into his box.

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