Early history The first opera staged during the
Ottoman period is usually attributed to the reign of
Selim III (1761–1808), when Selim, himself a composer and a poet, invited a foreign company to stage an opera at the
Topkapı Palace in 1797. In 1840,
Gaetano Donizetti's
Belisario became the first opera to be translated into
Turkish, and was performed at the newly built theatre by
Italian architect
Bartolomeo Bosco. The theater was transferred to Tütüncüoğlu Michael Naum Efendi in 1844, who continued to arrange opera performances for the following 26 years. An important public opera performance was
Giuseppe Verdi's
Ernani, staged by an Italian company in
Beyoğlu in 1846. Also in 1846,
Naum Efendi's theatre was destroyed by fire and was replaced by a new one. During the period of 1846–1877, operas of Verdi, performed mostly by Italian companies, reached a wide audience. One of the earliest Turkish operettas was
Leblebici Horhor (Horhor the chickpea seller), by the Armenian composer
Dikran Çuhacıyan who is also remembered as the composer of what may have been the first original opera in Turkish, ''
Arif'in Hilesi'' (Arif's Deception) 1874. As with other arts, the development of Turkish opera and ballet was brought to a halt from the 1880s by almost constant warfare, peaking in the
Balkan Wars and
World War I which resulted in the collapse of the empire.
Republican period The foundation of the new
Republic of Turkey in 1923 was followed by
Atatürk's Reforms, of which far-reaching cultural reforms were an important step. Under
Atatürk's personal guidance, many talented young people were sent to Europe for professional training, who, upon their return during the 1930s, became teachers of music and performing arts at the newly established Musiki Muallim Mektebi in
Ankara (opened in 1924) and Darülelhan in
Istanbul. The first Turkish opera,
Özsoy, composed by
Ahmet Adnan Saygun to a libretto by
Münir Hayri Egeli, premiered in 1934, singers included
Semiha Berksoy. It was shortly followed by
Adnan Saygun's
Taşbebek and
Necil Kazım Akses's
Bay Önder. During 1935,
German composer
Paul Hindemith and theatre director
Carl Ebert were invited to give lectures at Musiki Muallim Mektebi in Ankara, which was subsequently transformed into Ankara State Conservatory. The two lecturers were offered permanent posts at the conservatory, an offer which Paul Hindemith was not able to accept. Nevertheless, he kept visiting Ankara and inspecting the activities at the music school. Carl Ebert stayed in Ankara as the director of the conservatory theatre school and opera studio for the following nine years. On May 16, 1940, the State Conservatory was firmly established under law, comprising music, opera, ballet, and theatre schools. The first performance staged by the students of the conservatory was
Mozart's one-act comic opera
Bastien und Bastienne, performed with Turkish text in the accompaniment of the
Turkish Presidential Symphony Orchestra. In 1940, the second act of
Puccini's
Madama Butterfly was performed in Turkish by the staff of the conservatory opera studio, followed in 1941 by
Tosca. The conversion of the existing Sergievi (Exhibition House) building in Ankara into an opera house was started in 1947 and the building started serving as the
Ankara Opera House on April 2, 1948, with the performance of pieces composed by the
Turkish Five and the premiere of Ahmet Adnan Saygun's
Kerem. The organization of the opera orchestra and chorus was completed between 1950 and 1953. During the same period, a ballet school was established in Istanbul with
prima ballerina Ninette de Valois, who appointed
Molly Lake and Travis Kemp to run it. The school was later integrated into Ankara State Conservatory, giving its first graduates in 1956. Management of the theatre and the opera were separated in 1958, creating the directorates of
Turkish State Theatres and State Opera and Ballet. In 1959, the Istanbul City Opera was established by the private effort of Aydın Gün, and it was nationalized in 1970 as the Istanbul State Opera and Ballet. This was followed by the establishment of
İzmir State Opera and Ballet in 1983,
Mersin State Opera and Ballet in 1992,
Antalya State Opera and Ballet in 1999 and
Samsun State Opera and Ballet in 2009. ==Venues==