« Online political advertizing | Main | The decline of print »
October 08, 2004
Doors Open Day and the Edinburgh Festival Theatre
Saturday (September 25) was Edinburgh ‘Doors Open Day’ (not ‘Open Doors Day’, though that sounds better to me). This was organized by the Cockburn Association on behalf of Historic Scotland. This year they opened 67 buildings throughout the city - far more than I could manage to see in one day, even on a Segway.
A selection of offices (architects, associations, trusts), museums, monuments, schools, churches, theatres and parts of the university were open. I attempted to go round all the theatres, but even this was impossible as the obligatory guided tours tended to coincide, and I missed both the Royal Lyceum and the King’s Theatre.
We were given an excellent tour around the Traverse. The 42-year-old organization uses its two small performing spaces efficiently, and with great flexibility. We then went next door for a tour of the Usher Hall. This is, or should be, the pride of Edinburgh - a large elegant concert hall with 2,199 seats and great acoustics. It is used for a wide range of programming, whether at optimal capacity is an open question, and one that our marketing manager guide did not answer.
Next was the Festival Theatre: Edinburgh’s problem. Endless press reports on the troubles of Scottish Opera never mention one basic thing: Scotland does not have a real opera house. The Festival Theatre was a classic bureaucratic fudge after years of planning, discussing, and campaigning for a real house (of the kind that has just been built in Cardiff).
Going around the theatre, I saw for the first time what had been done to to the building. A 1920s music and variety hall auditorium, up to and including its original 14 metre proscenium arch (originally of the Empire Theatre), has been restored. Modern facilities have been built around it, both in front (the glass facade seen from the street, with a large staircase, a bar and a cafe), and backstage (including an extended loading bay for moving sets etc.).
Unfortunately a modern front and a modern (if limited) back do not add up to a satisfactory venue when there is no proper auditorium. Like many small London theatres of the period, the Empire doubled up on seats by making the dress circle overhang and cover more than half of the stalls. This enlarged its capacity (the theatre now has 1915 seats), but killed the sound for more than half the seats.
Opera houses, whether classic (e.g. Bologna), or 19th-century (Palais Garnier or Covent Garden), or 20th-century (Glyndbourne), all have open areas that allow the music (and the voice) to reach the audience unimpaired. They don’t contain closed-off spaces which block or trap the sound.
The problem with having opera or ballet in the Festival Theatre is that you either have to buy the best seats, or be reconciled to hearing a muffled performance. Given relatively high ticket prices here, that is not a great choice.
Without an attractive house with good acoustics, Scottish Opera and ballet have difficulty in developing the kind of local support that is the norm in other European cities. Accordingly they give relatively few performances.
Moreover foreign companies do not want to visit a substandard venue which can’t handle their sets. This is one reason why the Edinburgh International Festival is not up to the standard of Salzburg, Aix-en-Provence, Glyndebourne etc. despite all the BBC hype about Edinburgh having the world’s best festival. The greatest fringe? Yes. The greatest arts festival? No way.
www.cockburnassociation.org.uk/
Posted by Simon Holledge at October 8, 2004 12:50 AM