‘The location is brilliant’: Irish National Opera to make former Dublin church its home

Directions to Irish National Opera lead not to a flamboyant Victorian theatre, nor a purpose-built, acoustically considered, modern opera house, but to a grey door, sandwiched between two branches of a well-known Irish gift shop chain on Dublin’s Dame Street.

No harm to the business in question, but it’s not the most salubrious destination.

“Dublin is one of the very few capital cities, or even big cities in Europe, that does not have an opera house,” says Diego Fasciati, executive director of Irish National Opera.

From the rented offices above the gift shops, Fasciati and his team plan productions not only in Dublin, but across the State, and internationally.

“In the current season, we have big productions, really large scale – Carmen, Turandot, Eugene Onegin. Then we have a touring production, that will tour all around Ireland, then go to London, that’s a baroque piece. Then we have our contemporary piece, on right now in the theatre festival, then smaller scale touring …” The list goes on.

The office work can, for the most part, be done anywhere, and the productions travelling outside the capital are by their nature mounted in hired venues. What the national opera company really needs, Fasciati says, is a home to rehearse and develop performances.

“Performing arts organisations need rehearsal spaces, and in the case of opera, they tend to have to be quite large because of the amount of people involved,” he says.

“For Carmen, for example, at any one point there’s 60 to 80 people in the room. We also have to find spaces to rehearse the orchestra, and not only does it have to be of a certain size, it has to have a certain acoustic quality. Those are difficult to find in Dublin, because there is a scarcity of infrastructure for the performing arts.

“A few years ago we identified a strategic need of the company to have more permanent rehearsal space, while at the same time, also adding some security to the company by actually owning something.”

At the end of last year, Irish National Opera finally bought its first home, a former Methodist Church that housed the Dublin Central Mission on Lower Abbey Street, just off O’Connell Street and almost diagonally opposite the Abbey Theatre.

This large protected structure – almost 1,000sq m – was built in 1820 and remodelled in 1901 to its current appearance as a four-storey redbrick building, but looks can be deceiving.

“From the outside it looks like four storeys, but it’s really two large double-height spaces. Downstairs was the chapel and upstairs the large assembly hall. It’s great for our needs because it’s two large rooms and it’s in the city centre.”

The chapel, not being large enough for an opera stage, will become the principal orchestra rehearsal area, and potentially recital space for a “small ensemble”, Fasciati says. Upstairs would be the main opera rehearsal space.

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“We don’t need the two spaces full time, because we don’t rehearse all year round, but a lot of other companies and other arts organisations are interested in using it. The location is just brilliant.”

The opera company bought the church for €2.5 million, less than the €2.75 million guide price, and something of a bargain for a city centre property of this size.

“Because it’s a listed [protected] building, there’s only so much one can do with it, which I think is why commercial operators weren’t interested. You probably couldn’t turn it into another hotel.”

The money was raised from private philanthropists. However, for the renovation and adaptation, estimated to cost in the region of €9 million, Fasciati is hoping to secure Department of Culture and Dublin City Council support.

“We are talking to the department obviously, but also Dublin City Council, because this will be something that contributes to their efforts to improve that particular area. Once this is up and running, it means lots of people coming in and out, day and night. That presence on the street will animate the area with people, and people out and about always makes a place feel safer.”

An application for renovation and adaptation will be submitted to the council early next year, with work expected to take two to three years.

The new base will make Irish National Opera visible in Dublin, says Fasciati. “It will give us a physical presence in the city. Part of what we want to do is make sure everyone has access to opera and understands opera. I want Irish National Opera to be really well connected with the performing arts community and the arts community in general in Dublin.”

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It is also a first step to delivering on Irish National Opera’s long-term mandate to develop an opera house for Dublin.

“The greater number of productions and performances planned in Dublin cannot be accommodated within existing theatres. There should be a dedicated opera house that can present works of scale and is accessible to independent, Ireland-based production companies. You know, Germany has about 80 opera houses. I’m not saying we have to have that number, but we should have one in the capital.”