The origins of opera traditions in Latvia may be traced back to the eighteenth century, when the first musical productions were staged in the Duchy of Courland and the first traveling opera troupes appeared in Riga. The city’s German Theater, which offered dramatic theater, opera, and ballet productions, was opened in 1782.
The official history of Latvian opera began in 1912, when the Latviešu Opera was established in Riga by Pāvuls Jurjāns. During the First World War, the singers evacuated to Russia. But in 1918, the company returned to Riga as the Latvju Opera, under the direction of Professor Jāzeps Vītols, the founder and long-time rector of the Latvian Academy of Music.
On January 23, 1919, the Latvian National Opera staged its debut performance: Richard Wagner’s opera Der fliegende Holländer.
The Latvian National Opera Ballet is the only professional ballet company in Latvia. The more than eighty-year history of Latvian ballet has close ties with the finest traditions of the Russian school of classical ballet. In this way, the classical Russian ballet traditions were passed down from generation to generation, and eventually gave the world such ballet stars as Mikhail Baryshnikov, Māris Liepa, and Alexandr Godunov, each of whom trained right here in Riga.
The Latvian ballet was born on December 1, 1922 (though the company had begun to form much earlier - it was founded in 1918 as a part of Latvian Opera company under the leadership of ballet master Voldemārs Komisārs). That night, the curtain opened on the company’s first full-length production, Peter Ludwig Hertel’s La Fille mal Gardée, which was based on Marius Petipa’s 1885 St. Petersburg production of the work and was staged by Nikolai Sergeyev. In 1920s, ex-prima ballerina of Mariinsky Theatre Alexandra Fyodorova, a member of the renowned Fokin family, began to work as a ballet dancer and choreographer staging many ballet performances on the basis of Marius Petipa, Lev Ivanov, and Mikhail Fokin choreography. Under her direction, the company gained considerable artistic respectability and technical progress. In 1932, Anatole Viltzak, former ballet soloist of Mariinsky Theatre, Serge Diaghilev Russian Ballet Company and other famous European ballet companies, became the head of the LNO Ballet. The talanted dancer and choreographer Osvalds Lēmanis was the chief ballet master of the LNO Ballet in 1934-1944. After the Second World War the ballet was entrusted to Helēna Tangijeva-Birzniece; she had studied in St. Petersburg with the legendary ballet teacher Agrippina Vaganova. Helēna Tangijeva-Birzniece was predecessor of Yevgeny Čanga, Irēna Strode, Aleksandrs Lembergs, Janīna Pankrate, Modris Cers, Lita Beiris in later years, and Aivars Leimanis who is the LNO Ballet Artistic Director since 1993.
Today, the LNO Ballet’s repertoire is founded on the pearls of classical ballet – like Giselle, Swan Lake, The Nutcracker, Don Quixote, Le Corsaire – as well as classic productions by contemporary choreographers that have become audience favorites, such as Romeo and Juliet, Coppélia, The Fountain of Bakhchisaray, and The Bright Stream. The legendary choreographer Boris Eifman complex and refined ballet Anna Karenina and the Argentinean choreographer Mauricio Wainrot’s Tango Plus/Voyages enrich the repertoire with elements of modern dance and show our dancers’ adeptness in contemporary ballet. Occasionally the repertoire includes production written by modern-day composers – both original ballets (such as Juris Karlsons’s Sidraba šķidrauts (The Silver Veil) and Arturs Maskats’s Les Liaisons Dangereuses) and dance performances inspired by specific musical works (like Pēteris Vasks’s piano quartet/ballet Skaidri neredzams (Apparently Unseen) and Arturs Maskats Tango).
Aivars Leimanis has been the LNO Ballet’s artistic director since 1993. Leimanis has focused his attention on both revivals of classical ballets and collaborative projects with renowned choreographers, including Boris Eifman (Russia), Krzyzstof Pastor (Poland), Vladimir Vasilyev (Russia), Alla Sigalova (Russia), Radu Poklitaru (Moldova/Belarus), Thierry Malandain (France), Christian Spuck (Germany), and Petr Zuska (Czech Republic). The LNO Ballet has presented guest performances at the Theater du Chatelet, in Paris; the Bolshoi Theater, in Moscow; the Teatro La Fenice, in Venice; the Rome Opera House; Edinburgh’s Festival Theater; the Maison de la Danse, in Lyon; the Stanislavsky Nemirovich-Danchenko Theater, in Moscow; and on many other stages all over the world.
The opera’s chorus was founded in 1918, the same year that the Latvju Opera, established in Russia by Professor Jāzeps Vītols, returned to Riga. The first chorus master was Pauls Jozuus. Since that time, opera performances in Riga have been unimaginable without the remarkable work of the chorus.
Though audiences were often critical of performances during the opera’s early years, the chorus has always been highly regarded, as it continues to be today. In 1921, in an article on the art of direction in the publication Latvju mūzika, the former Latviešu Opera singer and director Ernests Elks-Elksnītis wrote that the low professional level of the opera’s directors is noticeable in mass scenes and in their work with the chorus. However, he emphasized that these directorial deficiencies are more than made up for by the fantastic sound of the chorus, thanks to the efforts of chorus master Pauls Jozuus.
One of the opera chorus’s greatest achievements was its 1924 version of Mussorgsky’s opera Boris Godunov. This production became so popular that in May of 1928, Fyodor Shalyapin invited the chorus to stage guest performances in Germany. There, the Berlin newspapers wrote that their city, with its three opera theaters and high choral culture, did not have a group as musically refined and aesthetically expressive as the Latvian chorus.
In the 1926/1927 season, critics lauded the chorus’s pianissimo, which was unexpectedly nuanced, in the production of Rimsky-Korsakov’s opera The Legend of the Invisible City of Kitezh, led by conductor Emīls Kupers. The early 1930s saw several productions in which the sound of the chorus was acclaimed as one of the most striking aspects of the performance.
After the Latvian company’s visit to Moscow in late 1955, where they performed the The Legend of the Invisible City of Kitezh at the XII Literature and Art Festival, several critics emphasized the chorus’s contribution. The highest praise came from the critic Victor Gorodinsky, who wrote, “Chief chorus master Rūdolfs Vanags and conductor Rihards Glāzups have achieved a transparent, incredibly expressive choral tone, which is surely the envy of many opera theaters.”
After a 1963 performance of Shostakovich’s opera Katerina Ismailova at the Stanislavsky and Nemirovich-Danchenko Musical Theater, in Moscow, Shostakovich himself praised the guests from Riga: “Director Kārlis Liepa, artist Arturs Lapiņš, and choral master Haralds Mednis have created this production with great mastery. I would particularly like to emphasize the excellent sound of the chorus.”
In 1995, following the reconstruction of the Latvian National Opera building, a new creative period began for the LNO Chorus. The opera was praised not only by local audiences by also by foreign critics, who lauded the chorus as a unified and very compatible ensemble. “The team of soloists and the chorus’s achievement was remarkable – Shostakovich’s works have rarely sounded so adequate, tense, and precise,” wrote Sergei Hodnyev of the newspaper Kommersant, after the LNO’s guest performance in Moscow in October of 2007. The LNO Chorus’s main qualities today are its temperament, stage sense, and steady tone, which won the chorus the Latvijas Gāze Annual Award in 2006 and received a nomination for the Latvian Great Music Award in 2007, in the category “for a remarkable achievement by an ensemble.” Many LNO soloists blessed with superb vocal and acting talent have also come up from the ranks of the chorus, including Kristīne Opolais, Antra Bigača, Evita Raituma, Dace Volfarte, Aleksandrs Antoņenko, Miervaldis Jenčs, Aivars Krancmanis, Rihards Mačanovskis, Armands Siliņš, Andris Lapiņš, and the remarkable chamber-music singer Ieva Parša.
The most famous LNO chorus masters, under the direction of whom the chorus has achieved a particular musical quality, include Pauls Jozuus (from 1919 to 1935), Teodors Kalniņš (from 1921 to 1940), and Haralds Mednis (from 1945 to 1969). Many others have been praised for their work with the chorus during various time periods, such as Rūdolfs Vanags, Ansis Alberings, Juris Radiškevičs, Ilgvars Matrozis, Vilmārs Vasulis, Edgars Račevskis, Jānis Zirnis, Mārcis Katajs, Didzis Kauliņš, Normunds Vaicis, Mārtiņš Ozoliņš, and Andris Veismanis. Since 2006 the chief chorus master at the LNO has been Aigars Meri.
The Latvian National Opera Orchestra is a company of more than 100 musicians. Many of them are highly acclaimed for individual achievments playing as sololists or chamber musicians, or successful participating in different international competitions. The Orchestra’s large scale repertoire includes more than 50 operas and ballets of different styles from baroque to first performances of contemporary works. The Orchestra performs approximately 250 times a season. At least four times a year, the musicians participate in different symphony and operatic music concerts.
In 2003, the famous young conductor Andris Nelsons became the Chief Conductor of the LNO Orchestra holding this position till summer of 2007. Such outstanding musicians as Mariss Jansons, Mstislav Rostropovich, Tadeusz Woiciechowski, Zbigniew Graza, Cornelius Meister, Julian Reynolds, Modestas Pitrenas, and others have worked with the Orchestra as guest conductors. The LNO Orchestra has appeared in concerts together with Gidon Kremer, Marta Sudraba, many great opera and ballet soloists from the entire world and toured many countries of the world.
Latvian National Opera is proud of its Orchestra artistic achievments.
During last three seasons, the Orchestra has demonstrated deep understanding of Wagner’s music and particularly colourful sonority in performances of Das Rheingold, Die Walküre, and Siegfried in frames of production of the tetralogy Der Ring des Nibelungen.
During two seasons the musicians have performed series of critically acclaimed chamber music concerts which became very popular among the audiences and approved bright individuality of many musicians.
