Turkish State Opera and Ballet
Encyclopedia
Opera
Opera is an art form in which singers and musicians perform a dramatic work combining text and musical score, usually in a theatrical setting. Opera incorporates many of the elements of spoken theatre, such as acting, scenery, and costumes and sometimes includes dance...
and ballet
Ballet
Ballet is a type of performance dance, that originated in the Italian Renaissance courts of the 15th century, and which was further developed in France and Russia as a concert dance form. The early portions preceded the invention of the proscenium stage and were presented in large chambers with...
companies of Turkey
Turkey
Turkey , known officially as the Republic of Turkey , is a Eurasian country located in Western Asia and in East Thrace in Southeastern Europe...
, with venues in Ankara
Ankara
Ankara is the capital of Turkey and the country's second largest city after Istanbul. The city has a mean elevation of , and as of 2010 the metropolitan area in the entire Ankara Province had a population of 4.4 million....
, İstanbul
Istanbul
Istanbul , historically known as Byzantium and Constantinople , is the largest city of Turkey. Istanbul metropolitan province had 13.26 million people living in it as of December, 2010, which is 18% of Turkey's population and the 3rd largest metropolitan area in Europe after London and...
, İzmir
Izmir
Izmir is a large metropolis in the western extremity of Anatolia. The metropolitan area in the entire Izmir Province had a population of 3.35 million as of 2010, making the city third most populous in Turkey...
, Mersin
Mersin
-Mersin today:Today, Mersin is a large city spreading out along the coast, with Turkey's second tallest skyscraper , huge hotels, an opera house, expensive real estate near the sea or up in the hills, and many other modern urban...
, Antalya
Antalya
Antalya is a city on the Mediterranean coast of southwestern Turkey. With a population 1,001,318 as of 2010. It is the eighth most populous city in Turkey and country's biggest international sea resort.- History :...
and Samsun
Samsun
Samsun is a city of about half a million people on the north coast of Turkey. It is the provincial capital of Samsun Province and a major Black Sea port.-Name:...
. The directorate is bound to the Ministry of Culture and Tourism.
Early history
The first opera staged during the OttomanOttoman Empire
The Ottoman EmpireIt was usually referred to as the "Ottoman Empire", the "Turkish Empire", the "Ottoman Caliphate" or more commonly "Turkey" by its contemporaries...
period is usually attributed to the reign of Selim III
Selim III
Selim III was the reform-minded Sultan of the Ottoman Empire from 1789 to 1807. The Janissaries eventually deposed and imprisoned him, and placed his cousin Mustafa on the throne as Mustafa IV...
(1761–1808), when Selim, himself a composer and a poet, invited a foreign company to stage an opera at the Topkapı Palace
Topkapi Palace
The Topkapı Palace is a large palace in Istanbul, Turkey, that was the primary residence of the Ottoman Sultans for approximately 400 years of their 624-year reign....
in 1797.
In 1840, Gaetano Donizetti
Gaetano Donizetti
Domenico Gaetano Maria Donizetti was an Italian composer from Bergamo, Lombardy. His best-known works are the operas L'elisir d'amore , Lucia di Lammermoor , and Don Pasquale , all in Italian, and the French operas La favorite and La fille du régiment...
's Belisario
Belisario
Belisario is a tragedia lirica, or opera, in three acts by Gaetano Donizetti. Salvadore Cammarano wrote the Italian libretto after Luigi Marchionni's adaptation of Eduard von Schenk's play. The plot is loosely based on the life of the famous general Belisarius of the 6th century Byzantine Empire...
became the first opera to be translated into Turkish
Turkish language
Turkish is a language spoken as a native language by over 83 million people worldwide, making it the most commonly spoken of the Turkic languages. Its speakers are located predominantly in Turkey and Northern Cyprus with smaller groups in Iraq, Greece, Bulgaria, the Republic of Macedonia, Kosovo,...
, and was performed at the newly built theatre by Italian
Italy
Italy , officially the Italian Republic languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Italy's official name is as follows:;;;;;;;;), is a unitary parliamentary republic in South-Central Europe. To the north it borders France, Switzerland, Austria and...
architect Bosco
Bosco
Bosco was an Irish children's television programme produced during the late 1970s and early 1980s. It was produced by the Lambert Puppet Theatre. Designed by Jan Mitchell, Bosco was voiced by Miriam Lambert initially; in later years Paula Lambert took over the character...
. The theater was transferred to Tütüncüoğlu Michael Naum Efendi in 1844, who continued to arrange opera performances for the following 26 years. An important public opera performance was Giuseppe Verdi
Giuseppe Verdi
Giuseppe Fortunino Francesco Verdi was an Italian Romantic composer, mainly of opera. He was one of the most influential composers of the 19th century...
's Ernani
Ernani
Ernani is an operatic dramma lirico in four acts by Giuseppe Verdi to an Italian libretto by Francesco Maria Piave, based on the play Hernani by Victor Hugo. The first production took place at La Fenice Theatre, Venice on 9 March 1844...
, staged by an Italian company in Beyoğlu
Beyoglu
Beyoğlu is a district located on the European side of İstanbul, Turkey, separated from the old city by the Golden Horn...
in 1846. Also in 1846, Naum Efendi's theatre was destroyed by fire and was replaced by a new one. During the period of 1846 - 1877, operas of Verdi, performed mostly by Italian companies, reached a wide audience.
As with other arts, the development of Turkish opera and ballet was brought to a halt from 1880s by almost constant warfare, peaking in the Balkan Wars
Balkan Wars
The Balkan Wars were two conflicts that took place in the Balkans in south-eastern Europe in 1912 and 1913.By the early 20th century, Montenegro, Bulgaria, Greece and Serbia, the countries of the Balkan League, had achieved their independence from the Ottoman Empire, but large parts of their ethnic...
and World War I
World War I
World War I , which was predominantly called the World War or the Great War from its occurrence until 1939, and the First World War or World War I thereafter, was a major war centred in Europe that began on 28 July 1914 and lasted until 11 November 1918...
which resulted in the collapse of the empire.
Republican period
The foundation of the new Republic of Turkey in 1923 was followed by Atatürk's ReformsAtatürk's Reforms
Atatürk's Reforms were a series of political, legal, cultural, social and economic reforms that were designed to modernize the new Republic of Turkey into a democratic and secular nation-state...
, of which far-reaching cultural reforms were an important step. Under Atatürk's personal guidance, many talented young people were sent to Europe for professional training, who, upon their return during the 1930s, became teachers of music and performing arts at the newly established Musiki Muallim Mektebi in Ankara
Ankara
Ankara is the capital of Turkey and the country's second largest city after Istanbul. The city has a mean elevation of , and as of 2010 the metropolitan area in the entire Ankara Province had a population of 4.4 million....
(opened in 1924) and Darülelhan in İstanbul
Istanbul
Istanbul , historically known as Byzantium and Constantinople , is the largest city of Turkey. Istanbul metropolitan province had 13.26 million people living in it as of December, 2010, which is 18% of Turkey's population and the 3rd largest metropolitan area in Europe after London and...
.
The first Turkish opera, Özsoy, composed by Ahmet Adnan Saygun
Ahmet Adnan Saygun
Ahmed Adnan Saygun was a Turkish composer, musicologist and writer on music. Ahmed Adnan Saygun is acknowledged as one of the most important 20th century composers in Turkish music history....
with the lyrics of Münir Hayri Egeli, premiered in 1934. It was shortly followed by Adnan Saygun's Taşbebek and Necim Kazım Akses’s Bayönde.
During 1935, German
Germany
Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...
composer Paul Hindemith
Paul Hindemith
Paul Hindemith was a German composer, violist, violinist, teacher, music theorist and conductor.- Biography :Born in Hanau, near Frankfurt, Hindemith was taught the violin as a child...
and theatre director Carl Ebert
Carl Ebert
Carl Ebert was a German theatre and opera producer and administrator.-Biography:He worked as an actor and theatre director in Germany from 1915 to 1927, directing Brecht's In The Jungle of Cities in Darmstadt in 1927...
were invited to give lectures at Musiki Muallim Mektebi in Ankara, which was subsequently transformed into Ankara State Conservatory. The two lecturers were offered permanent posts at the conservatory, an offer which Paul Hindemith was not able to accept. Nevertheless he kept visiting Ankara and inspecting the activities at the music school. Carl Ebert stayed in Ankara as the director of the conservatory theatre school and opera studio for the following nine years.
On May 16, 1940, the State Conservatory was firmly established under law, comprising music, opera, ballet, and theatre schools. The first performance staged by the students of the conservatory was Mozart's one-act comic opera Bastien und Bastienne
Bastien und Bastienne
Bastien und Bastienne , K. 50 is a one-act singspiel, a comic opera, by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart....
, performed with Turkish text in the accompaniment of the Turkish Presidential Symphony Orchestra. In 1940, the second act of Puccini's Madame Butterfly was performed in Turkish by the staff of the conservatory opera studio, followed in 1941 by Tosca
Tosca
Tosca is an opera in three acts by Giacomo Puccini to an Italian libretto by Luigi Illica and Giuseppe Giacosa. It premiered at the Teatro Costanzi in Rome on 14 January 1900...
.
The conversion of the existing Sergievi (Exhibition House) building in Ankara into an opera house was started in 1947 and the building started serving as the Ankara Opera House
Ankara Opera House
Ankara Opera House of the Turkish State Opera and Ballet is the largest of the three venues for opera and ballet in Ankara, Turkey, the other two being Leyla Gencer Sahnesi in Ostim and Operet Sahnesi in Sıhhiye....
on April 2, 1948, with the performance of pieces composed by the Turkish Five and the premiere of Ahmet Adnan Saygun's Kerem. The organization of the opera orchestra and chorus was completed between 1950 - 1953. During the same period, a ballet school was established in İstanbul with prima ballerina Dame Ninette de Valois
Ninette de Valois
Dame Ninette de Valois, OM, CH, DBE, FRAD, FISTD was an Irish-born British dancer, teacher, choreographer and director of classical ballet...
, which was later integrated into Ankara State Conservatory, giving its first graduates in 1956.
Management of the theatre and the opera were separated in 1958, creating the directorates of Turkish State Theatres
Turkish State Theatres
The Turkish State Theatres is the official directorate of the national theatre companies in Turkey. It is bound to the Ministry of Culture and Tourism and financed by the state to promote performed arts and enhance the public interest they receive...
and State Opera and Ballet. In 1959, the İstanbul City Opera was established by the private effort of Aydın Gün, and it was nationalized in 1970 as the İstanbul State Opera and Ballet. This was followed by the establishment of İzmir
Izmir
Izmir is a large metropolis in the western extremity of Anatolia. The metropolitan area in the entire Izmir Province had a population of 3.35 million as of 2010, making the city third most populous in Turkey...
State Opera and Ballet in 1983, Mersin
Mersin
-Mersin today:Today, Mersin is a large city spreading out along the coast, with Turkey's second tallest skyscraper , huge hotels, an opera house, expensive real estate near the sea or up in the hills, and many other modern urban...
State Opera and Ballet in 1992, and Antalya
Antalya
Antalya is a city on the Mediterranean coast of southwestern Turkey. With a population 1,001,318 as of 2010. It is the eighth most populous city in Turkey and country's biggest international sea resort.- History :...
State Opera and Ballet in 1999.
Ankara
- Ankara Opera HouseAnkara Opera HouseAnkara Opera House of the Turkish State Opera and Ballet is the largest of the three venues for opera and ballet in Ankara, Turkey, the other two being Leyla Gencer Sahnesi in Ostim and Operet Sahnesi in Sıhhiye....
(Opera Sahnesi / Büyük Tiyatro) - Leyla Gencer Sahnesi
- Operet Sahnesi
Aspendos International Opera and Ballet Festival
The State Opera and Ballet directorate organizes, since 1994, the annual opera and ballet festival in the ancient theatre of AspendosAspendos
Aspendos or Aspendus was an ancient Greco-Roman city in Antalya province of Turkey. It is located northeast of central Serik.- History :...
, near Antalya
Antalya
Antalya is a city on the Mediterranean coast of southwestern Turkey. With a population 1,001,318 as of 2010. It is the eighth most populous city in Turkey and country's biggest international sea resort.- History :...
, with international participation of opera and ballet companies.