Opera hits the high notes as Saudi’s latest cultural attraction

SPA

• 2,000 Riyadh attendees a night
• Jeddah planning opera house
• Artists visit en route to Australia

Anyone for opera? There was a time when the last place you would expect a serious answer to this question would have been Riyadh. 

But after Italian tenor Andrea Bocelli’s landmark performance in Alula last year, the sky’s the limit for musical tastes of all types as Saudi Arabia strives to develop a cultural profile that was once unthinkable. 

This month international opera, musical and soul singers such as Sarah Brightman, Michael Ball, Vittorio Grigolo and Eurielle took part in a three-day international opera festival in Riyadh, selling out 2,000 tickets each night. Saudi singer Reemaz Oqbi also took part.

Daniel Goldberg, co-founder of regional events manager Mac Global who helped organise the shows, says it is a sign of how the government is forging ahead with a bold arts policy. 

“Whether it’s bringing in a full symphony orchestra to accompany a film, or whether we’re doing an opera festival or a jazz festival, our job is to enable what they’re doing and bring in the talent to inspire the next generation,” Goldberg says, referring to orchestral film showings of Harry Potter and Star Wars films, which his company have recently staged for the Royal Commission for Riyadh City.

 “It’s a very big and young country. Their job is to stimulate growth in the arts and as a partner we help deliver that mission.” 

Mac Global has been working with the ministry of culture and the Royal Commission for Riyadh City to bring international artists from the world of opera and musical theatre to a country where the religious police – whose powers were trimmed in 2016 – for long even prevented music being played in restaurants. 

An opera house is planned for the Red Sea city of Jeddah. Famed West End and Broadway hit, Phantom of the Opera debuted in October at a concert venue in Riyadh known as The Arena. 

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But it is not only opera. Since 2020, MDL Beast – fully owned by the Public Investment Fund (PIF) – has organised an annual dance music festival outside Riyadh called Soundstorm. 

Music, sports and tourism are major pillars of the Vision 2030 development project launched in 2016 with the aim of diversifying the economy away from oil, attracting foreign investment and finding jobs for the growing Saudi population. 

But Goldberg says Mac Global – in which Sony acquired a controlling stake last year – was happy to be focusing on the more high-brow cultural events. 

“That’s where we want to be in the Saudi market, we don’t want to be pushing boundaries too far,” he says. 

Music has become a major industry in the Gulf, with many Western pop stars often taking time to perform in Dubai – Beyonce was reportedly paid $24 million for a one-hour concert earlier this year. 

Goldberg says international artists are starting to see the region as a place where they can tour to several locations. 

“The North American and European touring markets are very mature and established,” he says. “The Middle East is not there yet.

“But if you combine it with Australia it suddenly becomes a lot more attractive if you’re a touring artist. We’re trying to apply those principles to Saudi Arabia as well.”

Until Saudi Arabia develops a national orchestra of its own, though, it will rely on firms like Mac Global to bring them over. 

“The biggest cost for doing big cultural events is the orchestra,” Goldberg says. “You have to fly the whole orchestra in. Then you have to think about the instruments.

“The average musician can bring a violin on a plane but we have to truck in the big instruments from Dubai at the moment.

“To deliver these shows to a high international standard is very costly.”