After serving as a dance hall during the World War 2, the Royal Opera House reopened in 1946 as the national theatre for opera and dance. Sadler's
Wells Ballet moved in as the resident ballet company and plans were made to set up a permanent British opera company that could also play host to
the great international opera stars.
Over the next ten years, the first generation of British and Commonwealth opera singers emerged - Geraint Evans, Joan Sutherland and
Jon Vickers. Alongside them appeared the great international singers like Maria Callas, Tito
Gobbi and Luciano Pavarotti.
In the 1950s and 1960s, the Royal Opera was noted for its high production
standards. Franco Zeffirelli's production
of Tosca gave Maria Callas one of her greatest performances. Lucino
Visconti's productions of Verdi's Don
Carlos in 1958 and his black-and-white
production of La Traviata,
set in the1890s and inspired
by the drawings of Aubrey Beardsley.
It was in Zeffirelli's 1959 production of Donizetti's Lucia di Lammermoor,that
Joan Sutherland became famous overnight.
In the post-war period, Britain at last produced opera composers of
international standing. The Opera
House commissioned operas from British
composers, including Benjamin Britten,
Michael Tippett and Harrison Birtwhistle.
The House continued to develop exciting new
singers of international standing,
including Kiri Te Kanawa and Thomas Allen. The old tradition of
the prima donna standing centre stage
had gone and the post-war generation were singer-actors
who were part of an integrated production.
Introduction
