In a move that’s guaranteed to delight both local and expatriate fans of music and theatre, Vietnam’s culture ministry has decided to facilitate regular drama, chamber music and traditional opera shows at the Hanoi Opera House beginning this autumn.
The aim is to provide audiences with high-quality performances in the historic Opera House in downtown Hanoi.
It is also an answer to recent public complaints that the Opera House has hosted too few high-quality shows.
Starting in September, the Vietnam Symphony Orchestra, Vietnam Drama Theatre and Vietnam Cheo (Traditional Opera) Theatre will take turns performing at the Opera House.
Vietnam Cheo Theatre artist and director Thanh Ngoan says the performance schedule will include award-winning plays at national theatre festivals. By 2017, the theatre will perform there every Saturday and Sunday.
The Vietnam Tuong (Traditional Drama) Theatre will launch performances on October 30 and November 2, while the Cai Luong (Reformed Opera) Theatre will start performing in October.
“The Opera House is a golden venue with a good location and magnificent architecture,” says Pham Ngoc Tuan, director of the Tuong Theatre. “The ministry’s decision gives us motivation to practise to ensure that we give our very best performances.”
“Traditional drama artists have always wanted to perform at the Opera House but the rental fee is too high,” he says.
Located just a few metres away from the Opera House, artists from the Vietnam Drama Theatre have no proper stage of their own.
Their own stage has been transformed into a small rehearsal hall at the theatre’s headquarters on Trang Tien Street. Most of the time, artists perform at the nearby Cong Nhan Theatre at 42 Trang Tien Street.
“Our ticket income would never be enough to make ends meet if we rented the Opera House. That’s why we rarely perform there,” echoes Nguyen The Minh, director of the Vietnam Drama Theatre. “
According to Kieu Ngan, deputy director of the Vietnam Symphony and Opera Theatre, opera houses in other countries are venues for top performing artists and are always the pride of their citizens.
“Our Opera House, in contrast, has rarely hosted such shows for the public. It tends to host invited-only shows,” she says.
Pham Anh Phuong, the theatre’s director, is full of praise for the ministry’s plan,
“It’s an effective way to transmit artistic messages to audiences,” he said, “We don’t want to perform one or two nights, but several times a month.”
While organisers of traditional performing arts have found it difficult to sign contracts that cover rental at the Opera House, various pop singers from overseas have been able to perform there in recent years because they can sell tickets at high prices.
“If the tickets to traditional arts shows are sold at prices high enough to cover the venue rental, no one would come see them,” says Tuan, director of the Vietnam Tuong Theatre.
The Opera House was built by the French in 1911 with the aim of bringing classical performing arts to both the Vietnamese and French elite.
Size, though, is a limiting factor, While completing the construction in 1990, architects Ho Thieu Tri and Hoang Dao Kinh noted that the total 600 seats would not allow shows to be presented to a large audience.
“Many different activities have been organised at the Opera House, including award ceremonies of various sectors and schools,” says historian Duong Trung Quoc. “We should stop using the Opera House for so many kinds of activities and keep it for the arts.”
This source first appeared on The Nation Life.