[The Editors' Verdict] Why the Daegu Opera Festival Is Gaining Attention

On the 7th, I visited the Daegu Opera House. I watched "Salome," one of the representative operatic works by German composer Richard Strauss (1864?1949), which is difficult to see in Korea. It is the opening work of this year's Daegu Opera Festival. On the 20th and 21st, another opera by Strauss, "Elektra," will be staged. This is the first domestic performance of Elektra.

Last year, I also visited Daegu during the opera festival period. The highlight of last year's festival was Richard Wagner's (1813?1883) opera "Der Ring des Nibelungen." While the performances of Salome and Elektra last less than two hours, the four-part Ring Cycle is a grand work that requires over 15 hours of performance across four days. Including intermissions, the total performance time exceeds 17 hours. Due to its long duration, the Ring Cycle is difficult to see even in Europe, the birthplace of opera. Last year's Daegu performance of the Ring Cycle was the first in 17 years since its domestic premiere at the Sejong Center for the Performing Arts in September 2005.

Marking its 20th anniversary this year, the Daegu Opera Festival attracts attention with its differentiated works. By continuously staging performances that are hard to see even in Seoul, it solidifies Daegu's status as an opera city.

[Photo by Daegu Opera Festival]

During the recent Chuseok holiday, I traveled to Gurye in Jeollanam-do. While touring the city, a banner advocating the urgent need for a pumped-storage power plant caught my eye. I saw a similar scene when I visited Yeongyang County in Gyeongsangbuk-do during last summer vacation. Yeongyang County gave the impression of being desperate to attract a pumped-storage power plant. Banners and flags advocating for the plant's establishment fluttered everywhere along the roads, as if the local government had poured all its budget into this effort. It is the desperate struggle of small local cities to revive their stagnant regional economies.

I thought that differentiated cultural and artistic content might be an alternative. Of course, it is not easy to succeed in cultural and artistic performances in small local markets. However, if one judges it impossible beforehand, even achievable things will not happen.

In March, the Bamberg Symphony Orchestra from Germany performed in Korea. Although it is a world-renowned orchestra, Bamberg is a small city with a population of 80,000. The Bamberg Symphony was founded in 1946 by German musicians who lived in Czechoslovakia after World War II and has become an icon defining the city of Bamberg today.

In Korea as well, there are many cases where distinctive cultural and artistic festivals evoke specific regions. Examples include the Muju Mountain Film Festival in Jeollabuk-do and the Gyechon Classic Festival in Pyeongchang, Gangwon-do.

Since the Japanese colonial period, Daegu has produced outstanding composers one after another and grew into the center of Korean music and arts amid the turmoil of the Korean War. In the 1950s and 1960s, music departments were consecutively established at universities in the Daegu area, and in 1992, the first municipal opera company in the country was founded. These cultural and artistic assets provided the foundation for the birth of the Daegu Opera Festival.

In an era of population decline, it is time for small local cities facing crises to find cultural and artistic assets that can revitalize their regions.