The Civic Opera House, also called Lyric Opera House is an

opera house An opera house is a theatre building used for performances of opera. It usually includes a stage, an orchestra pit, audience seating, and backstage facilities for costumes and building sets. While some venues are constructed specifically fo ...

located at 20 North

Wacker Drive Wacker Drive is a major multilevel street in Chicago, Illinois, running along the south side of the main branch and the east side of the south branch of the Chicago River in the Loop.Hayner, Don and Tom McNamee, ''Streetwise Chicago'', "Wacke ...

Chicago (''City in a Garden''); I Will , image_map = , map_caption = Interactive Map of Chicago , coordinates = , coordinates_footnotes = , subdivision_type = List of sovereign states, Count ...

. The Civic's main performance space, named for Ardis Krainik, seats 3,563, making it the second-largest opera auditorium in North America, after the Metropolitan Opera House. Built for the Chicago Civic Opera, today it is the permanent home of the

Lyric Opera of Chicago Lyric Opera of Chicago is one of the leading opera companies in the United States. It was founded in Chicago in 1954, under the name 'Lyric Theatre of Chicago' by Carol Fox, Nicola Rescigno and Lawrence Kelly, with a season that included Maria ...

. It is part of a complex with a 45-story office tower and two 22-story wings, known as the Civic Opera Building that opened November 4, 1929 and features

Art Deco Art Deco, short for the French ''Arts Décoratifs'', and sometimes just called Deco, is a style of visual arts, architecture, and product design, that first appeared in France in the 1910s (just before World War I), and flourished in the Unit ...

details.

History

Samuel Insull Samuel Insull (November 11, 1859 – July 16, 1938) was a British-born American business magnate. He was an innovator and investor based in Chicago who greatly contributed to create an integrated electrical infrastructure in the United Stat ...

envisioned and hired the design team for building a new opera house to serve as the home for the Chicago Civic Opera. The building has been seen as being shaped like a huge chair and is sometimes referred to as "Insull's Throne" or "Insull's Folly." Insull selected the architecture firm

Graham, Anderson, Probst & White Graham, Anderson, Probst & White (GAP&W) was a Chicago architectural firm that was founded in 1912 as Graham, Burnham & Co. This firm was the successor to D. H. Burnham & Co. through Daniel Burnham's surviving partner, Ernest R. Graham, and Burnh ...

who were responsible for numerous buildings in the downtown

Chicago Loop The Loop, one of Chicago's 77 designated community areas, is the central business district of the city and is the main section of Downtown Chicago. Home to Chicago's commercial core, it is the second largest commercial business district in Nort ...

(including the art deco

Merchandise Mart The Merchandise Mart (or the Merch Mart, or the Mart) is a commercial building located in downtown Chicago, Illinois. When it was opened in 1930, it was the largest building in the world, with of floor space. The Art Deco structure is loca ...

and the former

Morton Salt Morton Salt is an American food company producing salt for food, water conditioning, industrial, agricultural, and road/highway use. Based in Chicago, the business is North America's leading producer and marketer of salt. It is a subsidiary of h ...

headquarters building next door to the Civic Opera House at 110 N Wacker, constructed in the 1950s). As they did on other occasions, the architects commissioned

Henry Hering Henry Hering (February 15, 1874 – January 15, 1949) was an American sculptor. Early career He was a student of Augustus Saint-Gaudens at Cooper Union and of Philip Martiny at the Art Students League of New York. He then went to Paris wher ...

to produce architectural sculpture for the building. The limestone used on the exterior was brought from Bedford, Indiana and carved by a team of stone carvers at Ingalls Stone Company under the direction of Harry Liva. The inaugural season was marked by the première of '' Camille,'' a modern opera by 28-year-old Chicago-composer

Hamilton Forrest Hamilton may refer to: People * Hamilton (name), a common British surname and occasional given name, usually of Scottish origin, including a list of persons with the surname ** The Duke of Hamilton, the premier peer of Scotland ** Lord Hamilto ...

July 15, 1929. It was commissioned by the Civic Opera's prime star and manager,

Mary Garden A Mary garden is a small sacred garden enclosing a statue or shrine of the Virgin Mary, who is known to many Christians as the Blessed Virgin, Our Lady, or the Mother of God. In the New Testament, Mary is the mother of Jesus of Nazareth. Mary g ...

. The opera received mixed reviews and parts of it were broadcast in the Boston area. The Civic Opera is the only house in which the work has ever been performed.Pearson, "The Other ''Traviata'': Hamilton Forrest's ''Camille''" The facility underwent a major renovation in 1993 when Lyric Opera of Chicago purchased the space it had previously rented. The chairs were repainted and reupholstered, the carpeting replaced, and the gilt paint completely re-stenciled. The massive project was completed in 1996. This opera house was the inspiration for the one featured in

Orson Welles George Orson Welles (May 6, 1915 – October 10, 1985) was an American actor, director, producer, and screenwriter, known for his innovative work in film, radio and theatre. He is considered to be among the greatest and most influential f ...

's film, ''

Citizen Kane ''Citizen Kane'' is a 1941 American drama film produced by, directed by, and starring Orson Welles. He also co-wrote the screenplay with Herman J. Mankiewicz. The picture was Welles' first feature film. ''Citizen Kane'' is frequently cited ...

''. In order for his aspiring opera singer wife to perform, Charles Foster Kane builds an opera house for her, but the quality of her singing reveals her ineptitude. The urban legend is that Samuel Insull built this opera house for his wife, who was not hired by New York's

Metropolitan Opera The Metropolitan Opera (commonly known as the Met) is an American opera company based in New York City, resident at the Metropolitan Opera House at Lincoln Center, currently situated on the Upper West Side of Manhattan. The company is opera ...

. Variations of this urban legend also often cite that the "chair" represented by the building's architecture faces West, which was intended to be symbolic of Insull turning his back to New York City's Metropolitan Opera from the geographic standpoint of Chicago. The fact, however, is that Samuel Insull's wife was not an opera singer. A variation on this theme is that it was Insull's daughter who wasn't hired—the problem with this variation is that Insull had no daughters.

References

Notes Sources *Chappell, Sally Kitt, ''Transforming Tradition: Architecture and Planning of Graham, Anderson, Probst and White, 1912–1936'', Chicago, Il: University of Chicago Press, 1992 *Kvaran, Einar Einarsson, ''Architectural Sculpture in America'', unpublished manuscript *Pearson, Edward Hagelin
, "The Other ''Traviata'': Hamilton Forrest's ''Camille''"
in ''The Opera Quarterly'', 1995 on oxfordjournals.org

External links

Lyric Opera website"The Magic Wand of the Opera" ''Popular Mechanics'', February 1930, pp 202-205
technical details of the 1929 advances Civic Opera House over other opera houses of that era - i.e. curtains, back-drops, movable stages, lighting, etc

{{Chicago Opera houses in Illinois Music venues in Chicago Theatres in Chicago Central Chicago 1929 establishments in Illinois Theatres completed in 1929 Music venues completed in 1929 Art Deco architecture in Illinois Chicago Landmarks

History

See also

References

External links