Wednesday 23 December 2015

Estonian National Opera (EE) visited 8th December 2015




The Jugendstil building was designed by Finnish architects Armas Lindgren and Wivi Lönn.
It was built as a national effort with the leadership of Estonia society in 1913 and was opened to the public on 24 August.
At the time, it was the largest building in Tallinn.


The opera house was heavily damaged in the Soviet air raid on Tallinn on 9 March 1944.

It was reconstructed in a classical and Stalinist style, and reopened in 1947


.
The reconstruction was done by prisoners of war.

In the flytower, several names of German prisoners are welded in, like Heino did in February 1947.




The painting of the dome is remarkable as it shows classical Sovjet heroic propaganda of brave soldiers and harvesting farmers.



The building houses the Estonian opera and ballet.
They are a producing house and play in repertoire.
Everything is done in house, so they have a wood, metal and costume workshop.
Almost every year, they renovate a part of the building.

The paintshop was just done and was equipped with a bridge to allow the painters to check their work from a distance.


Worth to take a look at is the entrance to the parking: at one side, the gates have the shape of a fiddlestick, at the other side they’re in the form of the hand of the conductor.


Next door is the Eesti Draama Theatre, dating from 1902, and also worth a visit

Friday 4 December 2015

Ystad Theatre Visit July 2013 SE

We were warmly welcomed by the director of this beautiful theatre, who is clearly a jazz lover.
This explains the program of the venue that is focused on concerts and a jazz festival.

When the theatre opened in 1894, its new machinery for movable scenery was already considered out of date.


The era of Baroque, when this technology had been invented, was definitely over. So it remained 
unused, and its wooden drums and shafts, chariots and wheels disappeared bit by bit over the years. 


When Per Simon Edström came looking for it in 1992, he found parts of it all over the theatre. So he started to reassemble the machinery, resulting in a new looking understage.

 


The machinery to move the wings is seldom used, but the counterweight lifts are still in operation.