Skyscraper-filled Dubai burnishes arts scene with new opera
DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — Already filled with towering skyscrapers, Dubai will soon offer soaring arias inside a new opera house.
Inside, individual air conditioning vents beneath the 2,000-some seats are designed to quietly cool the auditorium during the desert city's boiling summers, when temperatures exceed 50 degrees Celsius (122 degrees Fahrenheit).
The Dubai Opera offers a new draw for planned Emaar high-rise residential towers downtown, and could bring concerts and events out of the cavernous, air-conditioned halls of the city's World Trade Center.
The arrival of the opera house comes amid a push in the seven-sheikhdom United Arab Emirates to increase its presence on the global arts stage.
Many in the art world have criticized Abu Dhabi's penchant for franchising existing names, and human rights groups have raised concerns about the conditions faced by migrant workers.
[...] Hope said the building of the opera house wouldn't mark the end of Dubai's efforts at drawing cultural events, but rather its beginning.