Damascus Opera House

The Damascus Opera House (officially Dar al-Assad for Culture and Arts) (Arabic: دار الأسد للثقافة و الفنون‎) is the national opera house of Syria. Inaugurated on 7 May 2004, it is located in central Damascus, on the Umayyad Square.

Damascus Opera House
Dar al-Assad for Culture and Arts (official name)
Arabic: دار الأسد للفنون والثقافة‎
Damascus Opera House at the Umayyad Square (2010)
AddressDamascus
Syria
Coordinates33°30′44″N 36°16′43″E
TypeMultipurpose performing-arts building
CapacityOpera Theater – 1,331
Drama Theater – 663
Multipurpose Hall – 237
Opened7 May 2004 (2004-05-07)
Tenants
Damascus Opera Company
Website
damascusopera.com (in Arabic), the website of the Damascus Opera company

History

Damascus already had an opera house in the 1900s. During the French colonial period, Shahbandar's People's Party held their inaugural meeting at the old Damascus Opera House in 1925.[1] Hafez al-Assad 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 the new opera house in 2004.[2]

The new Damascus Opera House

The opera house is a five-level building that includes a 1300-seat theatre for musical productions, a drama theatre of some 600 seats and a small multipurpose hall. Since its opening, it has been the venue of numerous theatrical performances and concerts of classical European or Arabic music, as well as of film shows, such as the European Film Festival in Syria, before the civil war started in 2011.

The Damascus Opera House is the main venue of the Syrian National Symphony Orchestra (SNSO) that has made frequent contributions to musical life in the Syrian capital. Compositions by contemporary Syrian composers have been performed by the SNSO, including works by Iraqi-born musician and educator Solhi al-Wadi, violinist MAias Alyamani,[3] pianist Malek Jandali,[4] or Zaid Jabri, featuring Syrian musicians like Kinan Azmeh.[5]

In 2014, the Opera House was the target of mortar attacks, attributed to "rebels" against the Syrian government. According to a report in The Times of Israel, two students of the adjacent Higher Institute of Dramatic Arts were killed and several more seriously wounded.[6]

Damascus Opera Company

Aside from visiting foreign artists, the company produced The Marriage of Figaro in 2010. In 2011, the general director of the house and its company was violinist Maria Arnaout, who produced the short opera Gianni Schicchi by Puccini, an international Oriental Music Festival and a Syrian version of the musical Oliver!, casting orphans after the model of Venezuela's El Sistema music organization with street children.[7] So far, the opera house has not included in its programmes opera in Arabic or art song in Arabic.

See also

References
  1. Fawwāz, Layla Tarazī; al-K̲ālidī, Walīd; Manṣūr, Kamīl (2009). Transformed Landscapes – Essays on Palestine and the Middle East in Honor of Walid Khalidi. Cairo; New York City: American University in Cairo Press. p. 37. ISBN 978-9-774-16247-3."... Party inauguration on 5 June 1925, more than a thousand people crowded into Damascus Opera House to hear their leaders express freely and legally, for the first time since the Syrian Congress of 1920, the will of the Syrian people"
  2. Adwan, Ziad (August 2016). "The Opera House in Damascus and the 'State of Exception' in Syria". New Theatre Quarterly. 32 (3): 231–243. doi:10.1017/S0266464X1600021X. ISSN 0266-464X.
  3. "Longa Nehawand, Maias Alyamani & Maria Arnaout with SNSO - Damascus". Retrieved 22 August 2020.
  4. Jandali, Malek. "Yafa - live at the Damascus Opera House with The Syrian Symphony Orchestra". Retrieved 22 August 2020.
  5. "Kinan Azmeh premiering Zaid Jabri concerto". Retrieved 22 August 2020.
  6. Stojanovic, Dusan. "In Damascus, opera house suffers modern tragedy". www.timesofisrael.com. Retrieved 22 August 2020.
  7. Syria Today. Syria Today.
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