Kuwait Opera House is on fire

Kuwait Opera House is on fire

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norman lebrecht

February 06, 2017

Kuwait’s new opera house, opened three months ago, is in flames today.

No word yet of casualties or damage.

Comments

  • Ungeheuer says:

    Pierre Boulez did it!

    • John Borstlap says:

      According to my fly on the wall, they tried their hand on Prokofiev’s ‘Fire Angel’ and took the stage directions too literally. When they will have repaired the damage, they will replace this too dangerous work with a staged verson of Honegger’s ‘Jeanne d’Arc au Bucher’.

  • Fritz Curzon says:

    Where does Dubai (as per video caption) spring from? Long way from Kuwait.

    • Max Grimm says:

      Sloppy “journalism”…some of the earliest reports were broadcast by Dubai/UAE-based media and promptly resulted in some broadcasters reporting on the ‘Kuwait Opera House Fire in Dubai’.

      @Norman…“No word yet of casualties […]”
      Reports now state that there weren’t any injuries nor casualties.

      • MWnyc says:

        It’s not “sloppy journalism” exactly – it’s ignorance, no doubt on the part of editors (junior editors, one hopes) in Europe or North America who put headings on videos and such. (And you’re right, of course: it’s because those editors saw that the English-language reports were coming from the UAE and didn’t know – 1990s Gulf War notwithstanding – that Kuwait is a different country.)

        I can just about guarantee that the journalists on the scene who actually collected the news, as well as the people at the news agencies in the Gulf, either cringe or point and laugh when they see things like “Kuwait Opera House in Dubai.”

        (Me, I either cringe or spit fire when I see editors put mistakes like that on journalists’ work.)

  • Paul Davis says:

    This was bound to happen in an Opera House which was apparently Brand Neu…..(the type of pun which could get anyone fired).

  • Neil van der Linden says:

    Reportedly, other than the thick smoke suggests, the damage was moderate and there have been no casualties.

    • Brian Hughes says:

      I’ve also read that the fire was contained away from the main house and stage area. The show will go on–Thursday(!)–with the opening of that well-beloved opera, “Cats.”

  • John Borstlap says:

    The heading of this post could as well be an excellent one over a positive review of a production.

  • VideoPortal says:

    The opera house, situated in the Sheikh Jaber Al Ahmad Cultural Center, had parts of its roof missing following the blaze but it was unclear if this was as a result of the maintenance work or the fire.

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