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Purpose Opera houses have been traditionally publicly financed in many western countries. However, today many opera houses are facing serious financial troubles, due to the recent financial crisis. There is thus a widespread public debate on measures to ensure agency efficiency for performing arts organizations. Focusing on the reform implemented recently in Italy, which submitted opera houses that had severe financial difficulties to a recovery plan and encouraged forms of collaborative governance (CG), the purpose of this paper is to investigate the impact of CG on the performance of the arts sector. Design/methodology/approach Multiple case studies are used, on longitudinal data from multiple sources over a period of up to five years, in order to triangulate the narrative of financial and artistic performance and ensure trustworthiness. The study thus spans the period before the Bray Law came into force (2013) and covers the entire period in which recovery plans were implemented. Findings The analysis explores how opera houses are building sustainability for themselves and the community in terms of financial and artistic performance through CG. Various forms of CG adopted yielded positive results. Furthermore, more robust forms of CG generated better performance, especially from a financial point of view. Originality/value This paper adds to the limited knowledge of CG in the non-profit sector by bridging the fields of agency performance and CG. It discusses how the introduction of forms of CG can build up long-term sustainability, solving the dilemma of how to achieve financial equilibrium without compromising artistic quality, focusing on the case of opera houses, which are notably affected by Baumol’s cost disease.

Although Cherax quadricarinatus is now established in Lake Kariba, there is a lack of information on the appropriate gear technology and bait for its exploitation for either management or commercial purposes. The efectiveness of three trap designs and three bait types was investigated in order to identify the best means for harvesting C. quadricarinatus in Lake Kariba. The cylindrical and rectangular traps had higher and similar CPUE, which were significantly higher than those of the Opera house trap at all sites. Trap type did not influence sex ratio. Liver, sadza and fish heads were all similarly efective as bait. Either sadza-baited cylindrical or rectangular traps can be efectively employed to either harvest crayfish in order to maintain a low population, thereby mitigating potential adverse impacts, or for commercial purposes. This should be corroborated with monitoring and further research.

This paper addresses how the Sydney Opera House (hereafter ‘Opera House’), an UNESCO World Heritage site, has responded to climate change over the past three decades to become a more sustainable heritage site. The implementation of climate actions is critical to conserving and strengthening the Opera House’s cultural heritage significance—the building and its function as a performing arts centre and place for the community. The paper points out that climate action has been, and continues to be, achieved at the Opera House by the organisation’s responsibility for its custodianship by (1) bringing the Opera House team together to tackle climate change through good governance; (2) inspiring positive change in the community through creative programming and engagement; (3) holding the organisation accountable by setting and achieving environmental performance benchmarks; (4) implementing practical mitigation measures that also respect heritage values; and (5) applying a participatory approach to climate risk and adaptation planning. The paper argues that the tangible heritage values of the Opera House (e.g. the building and site) were not adversely affected by the engagement and mitigation actions and that these actions were, in fact, conserved and strengthened the site’s intangible heritage values (e.g. its use). This paper aims to provide an example of sustainable management and climate action by a cultural organisation that serves as the custodian of a heritage site.

The coupling effects between the stage house and the auditorium in opera houses make the sound field very complex. In the present study, the effects of stage absorption on the primary monaural objective room acoustic parameters in the seating area of an opera house in China were investigated by means of computer simulation and scaled model measurement. In computer simulations, the absorption coefficient of the ceiling and walls of the stage house was changed across several steps, and then a series of experiments were conducted in a 1:20 scaled hall with and without curtains and wall absorption on the stage to verify the simulation results. It was found that stage absorption has a significant influence on early decay time (EDT), reverberation time (RT) and clarity (C80) in the seating area, while the effect on sound strength (G) is much smaller. The values of EDT and RT decrease with an increase in sound absorption on the stage, while C80 displays an opposite trend. In addition, when the average absorption coefficient of the stage walls and ceiling is over 0.5, the variations in these four parameters due to the increase in stage absorption can be constrained within an acceptable range.

The goal of this study is to assess the application of the Hardening soil model in predicting the deformation of retaining walls of excavations in 2D and 3D finite element analysis at the Ho Chi Minh Metro project. Designed as the deepest underground station in the first metro line built in Ho Chi Minh City (HCMC), Opera House station is located in an area with a dense building zone and close to historical buildings. A summary of the input soil properties is provided using data from site investigations, in-situ tests, and laboratory tests. By numerical simulation using the Hardening soil model, the parameters of the soil stiffness modulus value are verified based on the Standard Penetration Test (SPT), and Pressuremeter test (PMT). The obtained results of the numerical analysis by 2D and 3D finite element methods, and field observations indicate that applying the Hardening soil model with soil stiffness modulus obtained in situ tests gives reasonable results on the displacement of the retaining wall at the final phase. The relationship between the SPT value and the stiffness modulus of HCMC sand is a function of depth. This correlation is obtained through the comparison of wall deformation between the simulation and monitoring at the construction site. The results of the difference between 2D and 3D finite element analysis also are discussed in this study.

The Eszterháza Opera House was a theatre built by the will of the Hungarian Prince Nikolaus Esterházy in the second half of the 18th century that had to compete in greatness and grandeur against Austrian Empire. The composer that inextricably linked his name to this theatre was Haydn that served the prince and composed pieces for him for many years. The Opera House disappeared from the palace complex maps around 1865 and was destroyed permanently during the Second World War. This study aims to reconstruct the original shape and materials of the theatre, thanks to the documents founded by researchers in the library of the Esterházy family at Forchtenstein, the Hungarian National Library, and analyze its acoustic behavior. With the 3D model of the theatre, acoustic simulations were performed using the architectural acoustic software Ramsete to understand its acoustical characteristics and if the architecture of the Eszterháza Opera House could favor the Prince’s listening. The obtained results show that the union between the large volume of the theatre and the reflective materials makes the Opera House a reverberant space. The acoustic parameters are considered acoustically favorable both for the music and for the speech transmission too. Moreover, the results confirm that the geometry and the shape of the Eszterháza Opera House favored the Prince’s view and listening, amplifying onstage voices and focusing the sound into his box.

Attending an opera involves a multi-sensory evaluation (acoustical, visual, and more), cultural background and other emotional parameters. The present work aims to investigate the historical development of Italian-style opera houses, from the 16th century until today. Called “Italian” due to their origin, they developed thanks to the mutual influence of the genre and the building characteristics. Furthermore, the acoustics of historical opera houses is now considered as intangible cultural heritage, so it should be known and preserved. The paper addressed the state-of-the-art literature—most of which was proposed in Italian—which can be driven easily by the sharing of historical and contemporary knowledge.

Architects throughout the ages have looked to nature for answers to complex questions about the most appropriate structural forms for their buildings. This is the case of Jørn Utzon and the design of roof shells of the Sydney Opera House, in which the search for natural references was constant, from the nautical references in the initial design phases to the final spherical solution based on the analogy with an orange. This paper analyzes the influence of nature as a source of inspiration in this World Heritage building, assessing through FEM calculation models the suitability of the different solutions proposed and weighing up the influence of certain factors such as scale in this type of process. Through the calculation models developed, it has been possible to verify the poor performance of the initial designs compared to the power of the final solution, which, after more than 5 years of research by the design team headed by Utzon, was able to solve the enormous problem with a “simple” typological and geometric change.

Since its origin, opera has been identified with the performance and negotiation of power. Once theaters specifically for opera were established, that connection was expressed in the design and situation of the buildings themselves, as much as through the content of operatic works. Yet the importance of the opera house's physical situation, and the ways in which opera and the opera house have shaped each other, have seldom been treated as topics worthy of examination. Operatic Geographies invites us to reconsider the opera house's spatial production. Looking at opera through the lens of cultural geography, this anthology rethinks the opera house's landscape, not as a static backdrop, but as an expression of territoriality. The essays in this anthology consider moments across the history of the genre, and across a range of geographical contexts—from the urban to the suburban to the rural, and from the \"Old\" world to the \"New.\" One of the book's most novel approaches is to consider interactions between opera and its environments—that is, both in the domain of the traditional opera house and in less visible, more peripheral spaces, from girls' schools in late seventeenth-century England, to the temporary arrangements of touring operatic troupes in nineteenth-century Calcutta, to rural, open-air theaters in early twentieth-century France. The essays throughout Operatic Geographies powerfully illustrate how opera's spatial production informs the historical development of its social, cultural, and political functions.

Following the debut of Károly Szabados's ballet Vióra on March 14, 1891, the daily newspaper Pesti Hírlap called the date a glorious day not only for Hungarian music, but also for Hungarian genius and spirit in general, and treated the debut at the Hungarian Royal Opera House in Budapest as an allegory for spring: “It was as if the refreshing, revitalizing breaths of that traditional March breeze had blown across the hall of muses on Andrássy Road: such was the enthusiasm dominating the spectators' benches and the stage alike.”1 According to the newspaper, it was the long-anticipated victory of “the Hungarian genius, which some had begun to consider as almost alien to the Hungarian royal theater,” and it was all thanks to Géza Zichy (1849–1924), one of whose first acts as intendant was bringing this long neglected piece to the stage.2 In the context of Vióra 's premiere, the “Hungarian genius” and the “Hungarian spirit” manifested on several levels, as it was the decision of a Hungarian intendant to present the evening-long ballet of a Hungarian author revolving around Hungarian themes; but this raises the question, why did a Hungarian ballet carry such significance at the time? What place does Károly Szabados, the author of the ballet, occupy in the history of Hungarian music, and how was the ballet and its music received by contemporaries in and out of the limelight? This study attempts to answer these questions by examining contemporary Hungarian and German news articles and music critiques published in Budapest.