Royal Opera House, 5 Star Hotels in London City near Royal Opera House, Opera Theatres London

Royal Opera House

Covent Garden, London WC2E 9DD

The Royal Opera House is located in Covent Garden. It is home of The Royal Opera, The Royal Ballet and the Orchestra of the Royal Opera House.

Originally called the Theatre Royal, The Royal Opera House served primarily as a playhouse for the first hundred years of its history. In 1734, the first ballet was presented. A year later, Handel's first season of operas began. Many of his operas and oratorios were specifically written for Covent Garden and had their premieres there.
The current building is the third theatre on the site following disastrous fires in 1808 and 1857. The façade, foyer, and auditorium date from 1858, but almost every other element of the present complex dates from an extensive reconstruction in the 1990s. The Royal Opera House has a capacity of 2,256 people and consists of four tiers of boxes and balconies and the amphitheatre gallery. The proscenium is 12.2 meters wide and 14.8 meters high. The main auditorium is a Grade 1 listed building.

The Royal Opera House aims to act as a catalyst for positive change within the arts, in partnership with like-minded organisations. The Culture Quarter Programme epitomizes this approach. In February 2010 is was awarded a grant from the Future Jobs Fund, a government initiative set up to support the creation of temporary, paid jobs for long-term unemployed young people aged 18– 24. The Royal Opera House used this funding to design and lead a unique employment project, the Culture Quarter Programme (CQP), in conjunction with nine other high profile creative and cultural institutions. The CQP partner organizations offered 68 young people paid work and training opportunities for a six-month period. Of these jobs, 21 were at the Royal Opera House and 47 were among the nine partner employers, including English National Opera, National Portrait Gallery, Somerset House and the V&A Museum. The roles offered were in a diverse range of backstage positions, encompassing the full spectrum of departments within the various organizations.

In leading this project the Royal Opera House sought to play its part in addressing the issue of youth unemployment. This also fed into their strategic objectives of developing a more diverse workforce for the sector and assisting young people who may have previously been excluded from a career in the creative industries. The CQP was carefully structured to ensure that all participants benefited from their time on the programme. In addition to their job, each participant studied towards a National Vocational Qualification and attended a weekly programme of master classes delivered by experts from across the sector, giving them an insight into the range of work that goes on behind the scenes. In parallel to this they were involved in a range of off-the-job training sessions to support their employability skills including one-to-one mentoring, CV building, job searching and mock interviews. The participants also worked as arts ambassadors, developing their creative talents and sharing their experience of working in the arts with their local community. This culminated in the creation of images, podcasts and videos displayed in Seven Days in Seven Dials, an exhibition staged in a vacant shop used as a gallery. More than 500 people viewed this work. It is a measure of the success of the programme that more than three quarters of the CQP graduates went on to further employment, many taking up jobs with the organizations involved, or progressed on to further education opportunities.

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