UCC to invest €500k in Opera House partnership
The funding from UCC’s non-taxpayer revenues will be spread over eight years and the university will get its name in lights over the Cork Opera House, replacing the Toyota signs that were recently removed at the end of a 30-year-old sponsorship deal.
One of three large signs showing the Cork Opera House and UCC logos, either side of the words “creating together”, has been erected on the fly tower above the city-centre building. It will be lit from below at night, like the Toyota sign that preceded it, and two similar signs will be placed on the tower’s north and west facades.
In return for its €60,000-plus-VAT annual investment, UCC will get to send students on internships with the theatre in areas including management, marketing, business development, and the more creative side for skills like lighting, sound and costume design.
An MA in Arts and Cultural management is being developed and is due to admit the first students from next year in a collaboration between Cork Opera House and UCC’s school of music and theatre.
The head of the school, Jools Gilson, said the partnership brings two worlds together and provides a missing piece of the puzzle.
“We have a scholarship, lively debate, exploration, and a great deal of practice-based learning in the performing arts, but we can’t replicate what it means to run a successful venue,” said Prof Gilson.
“This collaboration offers our students this practical hands-on opportunity to intern in a lively opera house in areas from stage management to marketing.”
Cork Opera House chief executive Eibhlín Gleeson said the new partners want to create a city where the arts can thrive, and she believes the deal will have a long-lasting impact on the arts scene.
“We are developing and mentoring the people who will become the producers, arts managers, technicians and heads of arts institutions in Cork and beyond,” said Ms Gleeson, herself a UCC graduate.
The creation of a theatre artist-in-residence role will see development work being done at the Opera House which will inform his or her contribution to teaching at UCC. The university will be given preferential rates to use the 900-seat auditorium for student events and conferences which, it said, would give the city a major economic boost.
A PhD research programme will be jointly funded by the two institutions to explore the Opera House’s impact on Cork and the region. This will initially support one researcher but that may be expanded later.
