Israeli Opera

General Director: Hanna Munitz  Music Director: David Stern

The Israeli Opera is one of the focal points of Israeli culture - a youthful, vibrant international company committed to presenting opera as a dramatic theatrical art form. Constantly expanding its audience base, the Israeli Opera today enjoys the support of over 18,000 subscribers and mounts an average of eight productions each season as well as community productions and outdoor opera productions.

Israeli Opera casts feature, young alongside established international and Israeli opera singers, supported by world-class production teams. The result: audiences experience opera at its best. The Israeli Opera co-produces regularly with leading opera companies including the Vienna Staatsoper, the Kirov (Mariinsky) Opera, the Los Angeles Opera, the Salzburg Easter Festival, the Royal Opera House Covent Garden and others. All Israeli Opera productions are sung in the original language, accompanied by Hebrew and English subtitles and presented at the state of the art 1,500 seats Opera House in Tel Aviv, opened in 1994.

In a country in which opera is a relative new art form, one of the major aims of the Israeli Opera, since its inception, was to nurture the opera artists of the future on the one hand and the opera buffs of the future on the other and to bring the magic of opera to thousands of people of all ages who might not regularly attend the Opera House. Numerous projects were initiated in order to take the opera outside of the opera house and to present the art form in various ways to a larger and variegated audience. Today, the Israeli Opera and its work are well known to many more people than the company’s core subscribers and single ticket buyers. The company follows its policy making sure that people all over Israel will be aware that opera is the most exciting art form on planet earth.

In order to broaden its involvement with the society it operates in and to try and bridge societal gaps, as art should always do, and in order to present opera as an art form to as wide an audience as possible, the Israeli Opera has initiated several year long community opera productions with a major aim to present the magical world of opera to audiences and communities who were not familiar with the art form.

The major artistic aim of the Israeli Opera has always been to present opera as a dramatic-theatrical art form and to widen its audience base. From its beginning in 1985, the Israeli Opera has been a company built by pioneers struggling to realize their artistic dreams in a nation still unborn - a tale of love, hope and despair which finally puts Israel on the international opera map.

The Israeli Opera Chorus

Participates regularly in all Israeli Opera productions, performing a wide repertoire ranging from the Baroque (Handel) through the classic operatic literature (Mozart, Verdi, Puccini), to modern operas (Janacek, Britten, Shostakovich) as well as world premieres of Israeli operas (Yosef, Alpha & Omega and A Journey to the End of the Millennium). The chorus also performed in Israeli Opera tours abroad in Berlin (L'elisir d'amore), the Savonlinna Opera Festival, Finland, and Wiesbaden (La traviata). The chorus regularly performs a wide operatic and concert repertoire with most Israeli orchestras including the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra, the Israel Symphony Orchestra Rishon LeZion, the Jerusalem Symphony Orchestra, IBA and the Raanana Symphonette Orchestra. The chorus also performs a-cappella programs. The Israeli Opera Chorus performed under the baton of conductors such as Asher Fisch, Valery Gergiev, Dan Ettinger, Daniel Oren, Gary Bertini, Zubin Mehta, Kurt Masur, Maurizio Benini, Alberto Zedda, Frederic Chaslin, Gabrielle Ferro, Julius Rudel and many others. Most recently the Israeli Opera Chorus performed Aida and Don Carlo (Verdi) with the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra under the baton of Zubin Mehta. The conductor of the Israeli Opera Chorus is Yishai Steckler.

Verdi's Opera Aida Conducted by Daniel Oren with international opera singers He Hui (as Aida), Piero Giuliacci, Burchuladze Paata & Carlo Striuli