Plantation land

Before it had a single house, the land that became Opera Estate was part of almost 500 acres of coconut and rubber plantations owned by the Frankel family, Jewish merchants who had settled in Singapore from Lithuania. The estate is today bordered by New Upper Changi Road, Bedok South Road, Upper East Coast Road and Siglap Road. 1

Around 1947, the land was bought by Crédit Foncier d’Extrême-Orient, a Franco-Belgian developer, for about $1.1 million in a deal brokered by Nassim & Co. It was eventually divided into two estates: Frankel Estate and Opera Estate. 1

What a landed home cost in the 1950s

Development began in the 1950s, with plots sold to several developers. Crédit Foncier’s single-storey terraces on Dafne Street and Aida Street — asbestos roofs, cement floors — started at $9,760. Nassim & Co. sold single-storey terraces on Fidelio Street from $14,000, each with two bedrooms and front and back gardens, and in 1957 advertised a three-bedroom, two-storey bungalow for $24,900. 1

Developer Chua Chye Chua, who bought a parcel in 1957, recalled a “semi-deserted, jungle-like” site of rubber trees, duck ponds, pig farms and limestone hillocks that had to be cleared before building. His 12 bungalows sold for $15,000 to $18,000 each, and he described his buyers as clerical and semi-professional workers rather than the wealthy. Bangsawan actor Shariff Medan said he paid just $7,800 for his terrace on Dido Street. 1

Muddy roads, pirate taxis and a new bridge

Early residents had no buses. In 1958 they petitioned the authorities, describing office workers and schoolchildren walking a mile to Changi Road to catch a bus. Until then they relied on pirate taxis. A daily bus service finally began in May 1959, after a concrete bridge replaced a makeshift one built from coconut tree trunks. 1

Decades of floods

Low-lying parts of the estate — around Fidelio Street, Dido Street, Carmen Street, Carmen Terrace and Lakme Terrace — flooded repeatedly. In October 1973, a single morning downpour left more than a hundred homes under three to four feet of water. Floods continued into the 1990s, until a $46-million drainage scheme, begun in 1996 and completed around 2002, added an underground stormwater tank beneath the Opera Estate Primary School field. 1

Why the streets are named after operas

According to Singapore’s street-naming advisory committee, the estate’s name and its street names were probably suggested by a developer. They draw on European opera — Verdi’s Aida and Ernani, Bizet’s Carmen, Beethoven’s Fidelio, Mozart’s Figaro, Puccini’s Tosca, Wagner’s Rienzi — as well as bangsawan, the traditional Malay opera, in names like Jalan Bangsawan, Jalan Bintang Tiga and Terang Bulan Avenue. Metropole Drive is thought to reference the opera house in Metz, France, the oldest in the country. 12

Today, most of the original single-storey homes have been rebuilt into modern multi-storey houses. Opera Estate Boys’ and Girls’ Schools opened side by side on Fidelio Street in 1959 and merged in 1985 as Opera Estate Primary School, which is still there. 1

Sources

  1. Living in Harmony: The History of Opera Estate — BiblioAsia, National Library Board (2022)
  2. Siglap, Frankel Estate and Opera Estate (Bedok Heritage Trail) — Roots.gov.sg, National Heritage Board