Den Norske Opera

[Tisham Candella]

TheNorwegian National Opera and Ballet (Norwegian: Den Norske Opera & Ballett) is a Norwegian opera company and ballet company. The first fully professional company each for opera and ballet in Norway and the only such professional organisation in the country, it is currently resident at the Oslo Opera House, since the spring of 2008.[1]

Founded in 1957, the company had Kirsten Flagstad as its first general manager, from 1958 to 1960, and placed an emphasis on presenting operas and ballets written by Norwegian composers, and Norwegian as the standard language of the opera singers.[2] Subsequent general managers have included Bjrn Simensen. The Ballet School at the Norwegian National Opera & Ballet was founded in 1965. In January 2009, the Norwegian Opera and Ballet was reorganized, during the tenure of Tom Remlov as general managing director. The company's current general manager is Nils Are Karstad Lys.

In the 1980s and 1990s, Den Norske Opera campaigned for a number of years for construction of a new opera house, with preference in the Bjrvika district, a harbour area of downtown Oslo.[3] The Oslo Opera House was opened in the spring of 2008. In 2008 Radio Marconi, an Italian company, installed a seatback multimedia system, from an idea of Geir Mortil of the Norwegian National Opera & Ballet, allowing audiences to follow opera libretto in other languages in addition to the original language.

The house orchestra was on terrific form for Joana Mallwitz. She led a reading that was wonderfully fleet, allowing the work to unfold at a natural, conversational pace. Perhaps, it felt that Eriksmoen and Angelico would have preferred a little more room to blossom in the presentation of the rose, but the trio was ideally paced, happily far from the endless dirge so many subject us to. Mallwitz cultivated a big, bold orchestral sound and in Act 1, it did feel that it worked against the singers in a way, with the cast not always audible across the undeniably magnificent wall of sound emerging from the pit. As the evening progressed, balance improved and the work unfolded with a natural, unhurried ease. The depth of string tone was most impressive and the brass tremendously extrovert. The piquant clarinets added spice to the texture. Towards the end, there were a few ragged chords here and there, but these were passing. On the whole, the quality of the orchestral playing was impressively high.

Overall, this was a bit of a mixed evening. We had a somewhat earthbound first act that led, in Act 2, into a vivid and moving portrayal of that coup de foudre of true love. The staging was disappointingly prosaic but, thanks to the electric chemistry between Eriksmoen and Angelico, grew into something quite special. The orchestra was excellent on the whole and led in a reading that was fluent and alive. Certainly, in Angelico and Eriksmoen, Oslo has two world class interpreters of their roles. The evening was met by a warm and generous ovation from the audience.

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The opera house is part of Oslo's revitalization strategy to redevelop the city's historically industrial waterfront into an active public space and was the first building to be completed in the Bjrvika area. It is built on piles in the Oslo fjord, abutting reclaimed land that extends Oslo's harbor, giving more of the city's waterfront space back to the public.

Inside, its horseshoe-shaped main hall is reminiscent of classical theaters of the past, providing a stage for wide-scale world-class performances. Outside, its open plaza and sloping, walkable roof make the building as much landscape and public space as architecture, making it a local landmark and a destination also for non-opera and ballet audiences. Generous windows at street level give the public a glimpse of the scenery workshop activities, and with eight connected art projects, making it one of Norway's largest public art projects, visitors are invited to awareness and engagement.

An ancient custom now protected by Norwegian law, allemannsretten (Norwegian for the right to roam) ensures one's freedom to move unrestricted throughout the countryside. Applying this idea to the interior in addition to the exterior of a building that is, to the landscape and also to the architecture - removes the oppositional nature from these terms. As they become synonymous, interior and exterior spaces become continuous. It was in this spirit that our proposal for the Norwegian National Opera and Ballet was conceived.

Like the roof plaza, the lobby of the Oslo Opera House is keyless; visitors have been free to roam its spaces at all hours since the building opened in 2008. White carrara marble seamlessly covers the roof and lobby to denote a continuous, public ground plane, also a 20 000 m2 art piece in itself. Today, the public roof plaza routinely hosts outdoor concerts and simulcasts of operas happening inside the main theater, with as many as 15,000 people attending a single rooftop event. Similarly, the lobby, with its theater-quality acoustics, serves as a venue for public performances.

The Opera House has made good on its promise to serve as the keystone of Oslo's waterfront redevelopment, including the Munch Museum, the National Museum, and the Oslo Main Library - heralding further expansion of the cultural district. Welcoming 1.7 million visitors annually, the Opera House has solidified its role as an economic driver for both the neighborhood and the city.

Construction of the Opera House has also produced other benefits. The large-scale environmental cleanup of the site, once a highly polluted industrial shipyard, has restored the Oslo Fjord to its cleanest in nearly 100 years. Healthy enough for humans and animals alike, the waters now support several active public swimming areas and more than forty returning plant and animal species. The success of this cleanup has led to national efforts to revive the coastline, deepening the impact of the Opera House beyond the scope of Oslo's masterplan and expanding the boundaries of one's right to roam well beyond the roof plaza, to the outer limits of the Norwegian shore.

The National Opera and Ballet in Oslo is also one of Norway's largest public art collections, featuring eight art projects and seventeen artists. Integrated art defines much of the design. The walkable marble roof is designed by the artists Kristian Blystad, Kalle Grude and Jorunn Sannes, while the textile stage curtain was created by visual artist, Pae White.

The perforated cladding in the lobby for the bathrooms was designed by the artist Olafur Eliasson. Chosen through an international art competition, the project allows the visitor's perception of the lobby areas to change over time and with movement around the structures. A soft light changes color while the diamond-like filagree shows differing characteristics of scale and hue when passing alongside the walls.

The interiors have been designed by Snhetta to provide an integrated and complimentary quality to the informal and fluid forms of the public areas. The seating areas are arranged to promote comfort while the furnishings themselves are flexible and modular allowing for change over time.

Honoring the 100th anniversary of the passing of Giacomo Puccini, one of the greatest opera composers in history, Picnic Performances opening weekend features New York City Opera and two glittering concerts celebrating Puccini's immense and indelible legacy. Featuring the New York City Opera Orchestra and Chorus and conducted by Maestro Joseph Rescigno, the concerts will include selections from each and every Puccini opera, performed by some of the brightest stars of the opera world singing some of the most beloved arias, duets, and ensembles in all of opera.

Bring your own picnic or purchase food and drinks from tents on the east side of the lawn. Attendees can enjoy cuisine from the five boroughs with a rotating line-up of artisanal vendors curated by Hester Street Fair.

Bryant Park lends out hundreds of free blankets on a first-come, first-served basis, or bring your own cotton or fleece blanket. To protect the lawn, please do not sit on waterproof materials such as plastic tarps, yoga mats, or inflatable chairs.

Performances are cancelled when it is unsafe to be outdoors. In some cases, the lawn may be too wet to open but the performance may continue. Follow @bryantparknyc on Twitter and Instagram for day-of event updates. You can also check the lawn status on the bryantpark.org homepage.

David Leventi Biography David Leventi (b. 1978) grew up in Chappaqua, NY and Nantucket, MA. In 2001, he received his BFA in Photography from Washington University in Saint Louis, Missouri. David Leventi's photography has been widely published in TIME, Architectural Digest, The New York Times Magazine, The Wall Street Journal, ESPN The Magazine, FT Weekend Magazine, Travel + Leisure, Cond Nast Traveler, among others. In 2007, David Leventi was selected by Photo District News as one of their Top 30 Emerging Photographers. David Leventi's photography is included in prestigious private and public collections including The Sir Elton John Collection and The Cleveland Museum of Art. In his most recent series OPERA, Leventi records the interiors of more than 40 opera houses spanning four centuries and four continents. Shot meticulously over eight years, OPERA presents a typology; each empty hall is seen from the place at center stage where the singers would stand. Perhaps the work even casts a new light on the Renaissance debate of seeing versus hearing as the primary means of perceiving beauty. In 2015, OPERA was published by Damiani Editore with a foreword by Plcido Domingo, Texts by Marvin Heiferman and Thomas Mellins. David Leventi currently lives and works in Brooklyn.

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