Table Of Content
- A New Entry Point to Access Downtown LA
- Related Articles
- Rosenberg Treasure: Charles Dickens – The Life of Our Lord
- Summer Theatre Camp
- Grand Opera House / Orpheum Theatre
- Galveston Bay Foundation Acquires Over 4,700 Acres of Coastal Habitat in Brazoria and Galveston Counties
- Ballet in grand opera
- Los Angeles Theatres
It was not unusual for Wood to design theaters in buildings that were designed by other architects. As the theater district of Los Angeles shifted south and west, and larger, more modern theaters such as the Burbank, the Hippodrome and, in 1905, the new Mason Opera House on Broadway opened, the fortunes of the Grand Theater declined. By 1910, it had become a movie house, and by 1920, second run movies were being shown for an admission price of ten cents. Operas, plays, and musical performers all appeared on the stage of the Grand, including, in 1887, the famous Edwin Booth. However, perhaps the most significant fact of the theater’s history for Angelenos is that, in December of 1894, it became the first Los Angeles home of the Orpheum Vaudeville Circuit.
A New Entry Point to Access Downtown LA
Notice that the short, multi-globed streetlamps have now been replaced by tall ones with two globes on that block, but not on the adjacent corner on the left, and the marquee has been completely sheared off to make room for a large blade sign. The building to the right has been “modernized,” stripping off its Victorian ornamentation while keeping its pointing finger logo with its address (?) of 118, and the short multi-globed streetlight is still out front. I was lucky to stumble upon a brief biography of the elder Octavius Morgan, which reveled his connection to Keysor and to the Grand. He was born in Canterbury in 1850 (no date given, unfortunately) and studied architecture in England (no indication of exactly where) before emigrating to the United States in 1871. He was in Denver two years before moving to Los Angeles, so he must have been 23. Keysor was born in 1835, and thus quite a bit older than his new business partner.
Related Articles
At the time of its construction, it had the largest stage in Texas at 70 x 37 x 69 feet. It was also one of the first theaters to provide indoor running water for the dressing rooms, as well as both gas and electric lighting. Located in the heart of the Postoffice Street Arts & Entertainment District, The Grand 1894 Opera House presents a year-round schedule of performances featuring stars of stage and screen, Broadway blockbusters, dance, music, comedy and more. The building was typical of large theaters in the late 19th century, designed in an eclectic Victorian style combining elements of Classicism, the Gothic, and "artistic" decoration, and all the modern conveniences, including gas lights.
Seaside Scenes: Jay Carnes receives community enrichment award - Galveston County Daily News
Seaside Scenes: Jay Carnes receives community enrichment award.
Posted: Fri, 29 Mar 2024 07:00:00 GMT [source]
Rosenberg Treasure: Charles Dickens – The Life of Our Lord
Between 1838 and 1850, the Paris Opéra staged numerous grand operas of which the most notable were Halévy’s La reine de Chypre (1841) and Charles VI (1843), Donizetti's La favorite and Les martyrs (1840) and Dom Sébastien (1843, librettos by Scribe), and Meyerbeer's Le prophète (1849) (Scribe again). 1847 saw the premiere of Giuseppe Verdi's first opera for Paris, Jérusalem, an adaptation, meeting the grand opera conventions, of his earlier I Lombardi alla prima crociata. The resourceful Rossini, having largely created a style of Italian opera to which European theatre had been in thrall, recognized the potential of new technology which included larger theatres and orchestras and modern instrumentation. He proved in this work that he could rise to meet them in this undoubted grand opera. However, his comfortable financial position, and the change in political climate after the July Revolution, persuaded him to quit the field. Not only did going to the opera allow people to enjoy a beautiful art form, it also provided an opportunity for them to socialize with their peers.
The first opera house in Galveston was the Tremont Opera House, built in 1871 at the corner of Tremont and Market Streets. It was so successful that, after 24 years, Galveston needed a larger theater for its performing arts events. The manager of the Tremont, Henry Greenwall, raised $100,000 (more than $3.5 million today) to build a grand opera house in 1894. Architect Frank Cox designed the Romanesque Revival-style building that included not only the theater, but also shops, a café, and a hotel, creating an entertainment and social hub for the Galveston downtown area.
Grand Opera House / Orpheum Theatre
Galveston Symphony Orchestra: New Year's Pops Concert – Fossekall - Galveston.com
Galveston Symphony Orchestra: New Year's Pops Concert – Fossekall.
Posted: Tue, 26 Sep 2023 15:12:38 GMT [source]
A large, bronze statue of a woman holding a torch stands on the newel post on The Grand staircase. Inside the theater auditorium, red, velvet curtains frame the stage and eight opera boxes. The stage curtain (originally painted by architect Frank Cox) is a replication of the original, depicting “Sappho and Companions”. An exploration of historic Los Angeles theatres including the grand movie palaces, neighborhood cinemas, and legitimate playhouses. Having made a fortune in his stewardship of the Opéra, Véron cannily handed on his concession to Henri Duponchel, who continued his winning formula, if not to such financial reward.
Galveston Bay Foundation Acquires Over 4,700 Acres of Coastal Habitat in Brazoria and Galveston Counties
Notable performances from recent years include internationally recognized groups like The Beach Boys, The Oak Ridge Boys, The Temptations, The Commodores, and more, as well as local organizations like the Galveston Ballet and the Galveston Symphony Orchestra. The Grand has a very special place in the history of our community and in the lives of many of our residents. It survived the storms of 1900 and 1915, and Hurricanes Carla and Alicia, as well as years of neglect at various times throughout its history. Of these events, the greatest threat to its survival was the 1900 storm, and it remains a testament to the determination of the people of Galveston that The Grand was quickly repaired and reopened.
The expensive artifacts of grand opera (which also demanded expensive singers)—Les Huguenots was known as 'the night of the seven stars' because of its requirement of seven top-grade artistes—meant that they were economically the most vulnerable as new repertoire developed. Hence they lost pride of place at the Paris Opéra (especially when many of the original stage sets were lost in fire in the late 19th century). However, as late as 1917, the Gaîté-Lyrique devoted an entire season to the genre, including Halévy's La reine de Chypre. For production statistics of grand opera in Paris, see List of performances of French grand operas at the Paris Opéra. Though the Grand was able to weather natural disasters, the slow progress of technology proved to be more damaging.
Los Angeles Theatres
The Grand seen in a detail from a 1907 Sanborn Fire Insurance Map overlaid on a 2007 satellite image of Main St. The bump offstage left was for dressing rooms and a prop room. Also see his Mainly Main poster set on Flickr for maps of the theatres on Main St. As the house was only four years old when Wood was commissioned to remodel it, it seems likely that he, already noted as a theater architect, was brought in to correct shortcomings of the original design by Kysor and Morgan, who were not experienced in theater design. A full schedule of upcoming shows is available on the theater’s website, so make sure to check that while you’re planning your trip to Galveston. You can even save some time by purchasing tickets through the online box office.
Step in to this historic Galveston theater and you’ll feel as if you have been transported to the past. A grand wooden stage stands at the front of a three-tiered auditorium framed by private boxes and walls decorated with intricate patterns similar to those found in great opera houses around the world. The stately interior décor showcases the opera house’s long history as a top-tier performing arts venue. Over the years, it has survived three hurricanes, including the infamous 1900 storm and Hurricane Ike in 2008, and was restored each time by the people of Galveston. The most significant development, or transformation, of grand opera after the 1850s was its handling by Giuseppe Verdi, whose Les vêpres siciliennes (1855), proved to be more widely given in Italy and other Italian-language opera houses than in France.
The taste for luxury and extravagance at the French theatre declined after the 1848 revolution, and new productions on the previous scale were not so commercially viable. The popular Faust (1859) by Charles Gounod started life as an opéra comique and did not become a grand opera until rewritten in the 1860s. Les Troyens by Hector Berlioz (composed 1856–1858, later revised), was not given a full performance until nearly a century after Berlioz had died, although portions had been staged before, but the spirit of this work is far removed from the bourgeois taste of the grand opera of the 1830s and 1840s.
Hurricane Ike hit Galveston Island on September 13, 2008, but The Grand was reopened on January 3, 2009 on its 114th anniversary. All of the damage that the hurricane and the flood had caused was repaired with only 92 days of construction. In its later years, the Grand Theater found some success with programs of Spanish language movies and presented popular Mexican vaudeville acts for the growing Spanish speaking population of the city. But, as the prosperous 1920’s faded into the deepening depression of the 1930’s, the old house once again fell on hard times.
The Grand began as a major, live performing arts theatre but after passing through a Vaudeville phase, it slowly evolved into a movie house. The movie house closed in 1974 and was purchased the same year by the Galveston County Cultural Arts Council. They transformed the movie house back into a theatre and then renovated and restored it to its former beauty.
However, he soon showed himself extremely shrewd at discerning public taste by investing heavily in the grand opera formula. His first new production was a work long contracted from Meyerbeer, whose premiere had been delayed by the Revolution. As Berlioz commented, Meyerbeer had "not only the luck to be talented, but the talent to be lucky."[5] Meyerbeer's new opera Robert le diable chimed well with the liberal sentiments of 1830s France. Moreover, its potent mixture of melodrama, spectacle, titillation (including a ballet of the ghosts of debauched nuns), and dramatic arias and choruses went down extremely well with the new leaders of taste, the affluent bourgeoisie. The Grand 1894 Opera House hosts performances throughout the year, with its main performing arts season starting in mid-September and ending in May.
As further recognition of its importance to the citizens of Texas, in 1993 the 73rd Texas Legislature proclaimed The Grand “The Official Opera House of Texas“. Each season, The Grand offers a selection of performances to area students and school groups. All of The Grand’s children’s programs feature professional touring companies who have sterling reputations for high-quality productions.
The Artist & the Astronaut tells the unlikely love story between the artist Pat Musick, a civil rights activist, and the Apollo astronaut Jerry Carr as they participate in some of the most historic events in human history. With a cast consisting of stars from Broadway’s greatest rock musicals, as well as amazing rock and roll singers, Neil Berg tells the exciting and incredible 50-year history of the music that changed the world forever! From the progenitors in the 1940s, through the glory years of the ‘50s, ‘60s, and ‘70s, up until MTV in the early ‘80s, Neil weaves fascinating stories and groundbreaking music, offering tributes to important and iconic artists.
