Since its founding in 1985, the Israeli Opera has stood at the forefront of cultural life in Israel. It offers a contemporary and meaningful interpretation of the classical and modern operatic repertoire, alongside innovative Israeli creations that shape the local operatic landscape. From My Beloved Son through A Journey to the End of the Millennium, The Child Dreams, Mothers, Theodor and many others, the Israeli Opera has built a repertoire that sustains an ongoing dialogue with the cultural, social, and emotional context of Israeli society.
With vision, boldness and determination, the Israeli Opera has created the conditions that enabled opera to flourish in Israel and continues to strengthen and expand them over time. The foundations laid here – nurturing operatic talent in Israel, developing original Israeli works, and making the classical operatic repertoire accessible to broad and evolving audiences have shaped the local operatic field and defined its distinctive character. Within this framework operates the Meitar Opera Studio, a two-year professional training program for outstanding young singers, serving as a creative incubator for the next generation of operatic talent in Israel. Alongside these activities, The Israeli Opera cultivates diverse audiences, builds educational and community frameworks, and brings opera to schools, kindergartens, communities, and public spaces throughout the country. In this way, opera has become an essential and integral part of Israel’s cultural fabric.
Each season, The Israeli Opera presents a wide repertoire of productions performed in their original languages, with Hebrew and English surtitles. It collaborates with leading opera houses and artists from around the world, while at the same time promoting the work of Israeli creators who enrich and renew the operatic field. The Israeli Opera is known for its musical excellence and the imaginative stage language it brings to the stage, a synthesis of tradition and contemporaneity that forms a distinctive artistic identity.
Education, Community and Accessibility
Musical education and community engagement are integral to the mission of The Israeli Opera. Each year, thousands of students are introduced to opera for the first time through productions, workshops and educational initiatives that reach schools across the country, including in the geographic and social periphery.
The Meitar Opera Studio provides young singers with in-depth professional training, stage experience and mentorship from leading professionals, preparing them for international careers.
The Israeli Opera leads initiatives that expand accessibility and foster cultural dialogue, inviting diverse audiences to engage with the operatic world through music as a space for connection, listening and shared meaning.
A Legacy of Vision
The Israeli Opera rests on foundations laid by courageous pioneers. Its story began with the vision of Mordechai Golinkin, who conceived the idea of establishing a Hebrew operatic theater in Moscow in 1917, and arrived in Palestine six years later to realize his vision. In 1923, Golinkin presented the first Hebrew language performance of La Traviata, igniting the beginnings of operatic tradition in the Land of Israel.
Later, composer Marc Lavry and conductor Georg Singer founded the ‘Eretz Israel Popular Opera’, which operated between 1940 and 1946 and presented 16 productions, including the first Hebrew opera Dan the Watchman, by Marc Lavry, poet Shin Shalom and writer Max Brod. In 1947, American soprano Edis de Philippe founded the ‘Israel National Opera’, which performed nightly throughout the country and nurtured young talents, among them Plácido Domingo at the outset of his career. In 1982, the ‘Israel National Opera’ closed, and in 1985, ‘The New Israeli Opera’ was established, today known as ‘the Israeli Opera’, a cornerstone of Israel’s cultural life.
In 2010, the Masada Opera Festival was launched, a unique and iconic summer festival, that featured large scale productions of the great operatic masterpieces, performed by hundreds of singers, musicians and stage artists from Israel and around the world, set against the dramatic desert landscape and one of the world’s most powerful heritage sites.
Looking Ahead
As it enters its fifth decade, the Israeli Opera is guided by passion and a deep commitment to bold artistic creation at the highest level, and to a vibrant cultural discourse that speaks to the time in which we live and to the society we aspire to shape. Through creation, education and community engagement, The Israeli Opera seeks to deepen and expand its place within Israeli culture, strengthen the connection between art and life, and invite new generations of audiences and artists to join its journey. From this commitment, the Israeli Opera aspires to remain a home for living, relevant and engaged creation, a great art form operating at the heart of Israeli society and offering it voice, depth and imagination.
.For those who wish to delve deeper into the history of opera in Israel, click here