The city of Mumbai is very lucky that in 1952, one of the richest Indians, the Maharaja of Gondal, Shri Vikramsinhji from Gujarat, bought the nearly derelict Royal Opera House on a 999-year lease.
Built in 1912 in Mumbai city centre at a cost of Rs 7.5 lakh, today the commercial value of the mere land occupying the heritage building would be hundreds of crores. There are no incentives or grants available for restoration of privately owned heritage buildings. But there are many hurdles and restrictions for the task.
Unlike the neo-rich, who would have demolished the building, converting it to skyscraper residential buildings, the Gondal royal family was keen to preserve this 100-year-old Heritage 2B structure.
In 2009, the present Maharaja of Gondal Jyotendrasinhji Jadeja commissioned its restoration to the eminent conservation architect Abha Narain Lambha, (winner of seven UNESCO Asia Pacific Awards for conservation) and has spent crores of rupees for restoring the 574-seat theatre Royal Opera House to its pristine glory.
A theatre enthusiast, the Maharaja’s wife, Maharani Kumud Kumari, hopes the performance arts community is equally geared up for the Opera House's new innings.
“In 1953, I remember watching Prithviraj Kapoor on a Saturday and his three boys — Raj, Shammi and Shashi — in a play in the Royal Opera House and I was truly impressed. Apart from varied performances, we are hoping to have operatic performances, too, to firmly re-establish the Royal Opera House as an opera of international stature and a cultural venue par excellence."
While there are a few centres of Western music in India, the type of western classical music known as Opera music is not much known in India. Almost all major cities in the world have their own stately Opera Houses. In India, the only place where western opera can be performed is the Opera theatre in the National Centre for Performing Arts complex in Mumbai.
Maurice E Bandmann, a renowned entertainer from Kolkata, and Jehangir Framji Karaka, head of a firm of coal brokers, drew up the Baroque-style designs for the theatre in 1909. Permission was sought and granted on the occasion of King George V's visit to Mumbai in 1911 to use the prefix 'Royal'. Completed in 1915, the structure hosted operas and live performances until it was converted into a cinema in 1935.