Travellers heading to Tallinn in large numbers - for opera

Night after night, one in four seats at Estonian National Opera are occupied by Finns

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By Auli Räsänen
     
      Attractive ticket prices and a diverse and digestible repertoire have meant that thousands of Finns each year make the trip to Tallinn for a night at the Estonian National Opera.
      In 2005, the Opera in the Estonian capital had a total attendance of roughly 110,000, of whom around a quarter - or 26,000 - had made the trip from Finland.
      The Finns' diligent travelling over the Gulf to Tallinn has for many years now been more than just for shopping and stocking up the drinks cabinet - intellectual pursuits are also on the agenda.
     
Young people flock over to rock gigs at the large open-air choral festival stadium and the Saku Hall, while the older ones head for the Estonia Theatre's opera, ballet, and operetta productions.
      The ferry companies plying the Gulf of Finland sell packages to Tallinn that include the crossing, a hotel overnight, tickets, and in some case also a dinner thrown in. For the price of one premium Finnish National Opera ticket, roughly EUR 100, you can get the lot in Tallinn.
     
Terhi Hakulinen from the travel agency Suomen Matkatoimisto reports that the company has been selling the autumn season's shows at the Estonia Theatre at a brisk rate.
      "When the repertoire includes Franz Lehar's The Merry Widow and Johann Strauss's Wiener Blut, the Finns get moving. Operettas are popular, because they are in short supply in Helsinki. But music theatre fans also respond well to operas over the water, for instance Carmen and Tosca. The most popular ballets are Swan Lake and The Nutcracker.
      Hakulinen says that the agency arranges an average of 35-40 tickets for Finns for an evening performance. Buses are waiting at the harbour to collect and deliver the travellers.
     
Leena Lahdenperä from Silja Line says that the shipping company has a stock booking of a dozen or so seats in Row 2 of the stalls at the Estonia Theatre. More tickets are secured whenever the demand calls for it.
      The heaviest sales for shows in the autumn season have been for Carmen and the ballet Romeo and Juliet.
     
The travel organisers' figures do not tell the whole truth about the numbers attending, however, since experienced travellers book tickets themselves in advance or simply march up to the box office, where seats can be had from anything between EEK 40 and 350 (EUR 3.00 - 22.00).
      The most expensive tickets for operas and operettas cost EEK 350 (around EUR 22.00), while the best seats in the house for classical ballet productions and portmanteau performances of short ballets go for rather less, at EEK 300 and EEK 240 respectively.
      This compares with premium seats at the Finnish National Opera that can cost up to EUR 115.00. Then again, if you content yourself with a place in the gods, up on the third circle, you can hear Karita Mattila or any other name artist in Helsinki for just EUR 12.00.
      The best Helsinki seats for ballet productions go for around half the opera prices, roughly EUR 50.00 to 60.00.
     
The Director-General of the Estonian National Opera Paul Himma notes that actually the share of Finns among the Tallinn audiences is falling, since people from other countries have also discovered the venue in increasing numbers: Swedes and other Scandinavians, as well as Latvians and Brits are showing up.
      "We can be well pleased that we took the trouble to come over to Helsinki to attend the travel fairs in years gone by, and started to market the Estonia Theatre there. It is now very well known in Finland", says Himma.
     
The 100-year-old theatre has undergone a thorough facelift recently. Everywhere is sparkling clean, and the climbing of endless flights of stairs has been reduced by the installation of three lifts.
      The Jugend-style building was completed in 1906, and was the work of two Finnish architects, Wivi Lönn and Armas Lindgren.
      The attractive main auditorium has seating for around 700 on the main floor and in two balconies.
      Where the Estonia Theatre suffers a bit by comparison with Helsinki is in the size of the stage, which is only 16 metres wide and 20 metres deep, with a headroom of 22 metres.
      Himma admits the restrictions this brings: "While we have learnt to content ourselves with what we have, it would be utterly blissful if we could build an extra wing that would give us a sufficiently large stage area to put on larger opera and ballet productions."
     
Helsingin Sanomat / First published in print 19.9.2006

More on this subject:
 FACTFILE: Classic productions in Tallinn

Links:
  Estonian National Opera

AULI RÄSÄNEN / Helsingin Sanomat