Royal Opera House

The Royal Opera House is a performing arts venue in London. It is also sometimes referred to as "Covent Garden" after the London neighborhood in which it is located. The building serves as the home of the Royal Opera and of the Royal Ballet.

Royal Opera company

The Royal Opera is London and the United Kingdom's most famous and wealthiest opera company. Generally it is also the most artistically important, although some of its productions disappoint, and other British opera companies sometimes receive better reviews. It is however, the only British opera company which regularly features the world's most famous opera singers. It performs operas in their original language and relies on guest artists to play the principal roles in all performances, in contrast to the other permanent opera company in London, the English National Opera, which performs in English and has contracted singers.

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The Royal Opera shares the "Orchestra of the Royal Opera House", which is a permanent orchestra of full symphony orchestra size, with the Royal Ballet. It has its own permanent chorus with over forty five singers: the Royal Opera Chorus. A third group of musicians on salary are the members of the "Jette Parker Young Artists Programme", who receive advanced professional training. They are not students as the term is usually understood as most of them have performed professionally at opera houses of some standing previously, but the programme is intended to accelerate their careers by gaining experience at one of the world's leading opera companies. The programme lasts for two years, with a new intake each summer. Most of the "Young Artists" are singers, but they also include conductors, répétiteurs and stage directors.

Related Topics:
Symphony orchestra - Conductors - Répétiteur

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Music directors of the Royal Opera

• 1946-51 Karl Rankl
• 1951-55 interregnum
• 1955-58 Rafael Kubelik
• 1958-61 interregnum
• 1961-71 Sir George Solti
• 1971-87 Sir Colin Davis
• 1987-2002 Bernard Haitink
• 2002-present Antonio Pappano