Israeli Opera

The company also founded the Israeli Opera Festival which has performed large-scale outdoor productions, originally at Caesarea, and from 2010 in Masada.

On July 28, 1923, the Erez-Israeli Opera held its first performance with Giuseppe Verdi's La Traviata, conducted by Mordechai Golinkin.

[4] It had been Golinkin's original intention to establish the opera in Jerusalem, but Tel Aviv was finally chosen because most of the performing artists lived in this city.

However, in 1985, The Council for Arts and Culture created The New Israeli Opera by brokering a partnership between the Cameri Theatre of Tel Aviv and the Israel Chamber Orchestra.

In the 1987/88 season the New Israeli Opera's first production was aired: Dido and Aeneas by Henry Purcell at the Cameri Theater in Tel Aviv.

Throughout the years, the Tel Aviv Museum of Art, Beit Ariela Sha'ar Zion Library and the Piazza connecting them were built there.

In addition to its work with the Israeli Opera, the ISO offers symphonic subscription series, family concerts and special performances for young people and senior members of the community in Tel Aviv and in Rishon LeZion.

The main events of the festival take place in Masada, with additional operas sung in the Sultan's Pool in Jerusalem and in the Citadel of Acre.

As part of the Israeli Opera's social activity, dress rehearsals in Masada are open free of charge to periphery inhabitants.

The Israeli Opera performing Aida at the foot of Masada , 11 June 2011
Aida at the foot of Masada, focusing on the set.
Facade of the opera house in the Tel Aviv Performing Arts Center