Opera Diplomacy

Latvia still can’t afford to buy all its soldiers guns and some of its roads are still riddled with potholes. But that hasn’t stopped it from throwing millions of dollars at its national opera, which officials here argue fervently is one key to Latvia’s resurrection.

Since independence in 1991, Latvia has spent tens of millions of dollars on opera, much of it going towards renovating the landmark national opera house in central Riga. Valdis Birkavs, recently foreign minister and now minister of justice (photo), said one reason for the opera expenditures is tBIRKAVS1.JPG (10161 bytes)hat the government sees opera as a way for Latvia to get the respect it deserves and so badly needs as it lobbies to fully integrate into Europe.

After the Soviet break, Latvians implemented tough market reforms, which in turn sparked strong growth. Latvians now insist they are as ready as anyone to enter the elite European clubs—like the European Union and NATO. But they complain their little-known nation is too often lumped in with less successful reformers—like Belarus or Bulgaria—and that this has sometimes retarded their integration efforts.

Showing off the national opera, insists Birkavs, helps set the record straight.
“A quality national opera not only demonstrates our level of cultural sophistication,” he said in a recent interview. “It proves to the world that we are in the heart of Europe. For us, this is very important.”
At the minister’s behest, opera has become an unlikely feature of Latvian diplomacy, with visiting VIPs being marched off to performances at Riga’s white-pillared opera house as a matter of course. At a summit of 11 government heads from around the Baltic Sea in 1998, the Latvian hosts made a night at the opera the climax of the two day affair. As the European prime ministers—including then-German Chancellor Helmut Kohl—filed into the opera house, they looked skeptical, glum, even bored, recalled Birkavs. But as the performance of Giuseppe Verdi’s Aida progressed, their jaws dropped in amazement.
“The prime ministers were shocked that the Latvian opera was that good,” said the Latvian minister. “They didn’t expect it.”

Latvia’s opera diplomacy has gone on the road, with the company apparently impressing audiences across Europe. After a performance in London, The Times declared Latvia’s opera one of the best on the continent.
“The Latvian National Opera boasts as good a company as any in this country,” the newspaper said.
Latvia established itself as an opera hub in the 1800s and during its first period of independence, from 1920-40. In the Soviet Union, Latvia’s opera was considered the third best—after the Bolshoi and Kirov.
Latvia’s opera tradition also includes Richard Wagner, who lived in Riga from 1837-38 and composed his first opera, Rienzi, while working in the city as a conductor. Wagner’s The Flying Dutchman was inspired by a stormy ship journey from Riga as he fled creditors here.

But around the time of the Soviet collapse, with a general shortage of funds, managerial disarray and the opera building literally falling apart, Latvia’s century-old opera tradition was under serious threat. Current opera director Andrejs Zagars likened the state of the opera house after independence—with its flooded basement and golden-leafed paint peeling in the main hall—to the plight of Latvia itself: lots of potential, but ailing and empty.

“Things were extremely bad,” agreed Raimonds Pauls, Latvia’s cultural minister at the time. “It was a desperate situation.”
Pauls said he was convinced the opera had to be the jewel in the crown, not only for the local art scene, but for the nation as a whole. But the prime minister at the time was looking for ways to salvage the nation’s budget, and far from pumping money into the opera, he was thinking about cutting its already limited funds.

“But I went to him and said, ‘Look, every normal, self-respecting country needs its opera,’ ” recalled Pauls. ” ‘We have no choice but to find the money and bring the national opera back to life.’ He agreed.”
The first and by far the most costly task was renovating the opera house. Many of the Soviet-trained staff, too, had become liabilities, explained opera director Zagars. Prima donnas who had passed their prime refused to step aside for younger talent. Feeling the heat from the new management, some staff even resorted to petty sabotage: including sticking needles into the costumes of up-and-coming performers.

Restrained by labor laws and Soviet-era contracts, Zagars said he had a difficult time edging out Soviet-minded singers and pre-independence management staff.
“This was very difficult and caused lots of tensions,” Zagars, a former Latvian stage and film actor, said in a recent interview. “Some people just don’t know when to leave.”

Years later, Latvia’s opera is brimming with young talent. Structurally, the opera house has also dispensed with the old ways: only a few years ago for example, sets and curtains were still raised by teams of men tugging on ropes and pulleys. Today, everything on the stage is operated almost completely by computer.

Inside the 1000-seat main hall, Astra Irmeja said the company was on track not only to be the best opera in the Baltics, but to be the best in all of northern and eastern Europe. She also described the opera as Latvia’s cultural flag for the outside world—but insisted opera wasn’t merely something to show off to outsiders. Proof of enthusiasm for the opera at home, she said, was that the opera house consistently registered over 80 percent attendance.

“Latvians are such a small people, so there are so few things to inspire us as a nation,” she said, waving her hand around the opera hall, studded with gold-plated cherubs. “We need something like this to inspire us, to give us the impulse to be the best that we can be.”