The Margot and Bill Winspear 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 ...

(one of four venues in the AT&T Performing Arts Center) located in the Arts District of

downtown ''Downtown'' is a term primarily used in North America by English speakers to refer to a city's sometimes commercial, cultural and often the historical, political and geographic heart. It is often synonymous with its central business district ...

Dallas Dallas () is the third largest city in Texas and the largest city in the Dallas–Fort Worth metroplex, the fourth-largest metropolitan area in the United States at 7.5 million people. It is the largest city in and seat of Dallas County ...

Texas Texas (, ; Spanish: ''Texas'', ''Tejas'') is a state in the South Central region of the United States. At 268,596 square miles (695,662 km2), and with more than 29.1 million residents in 2020, it is the second-largest U.S. state by ...

( USA). Designed as a 21st-century reinterpretation of the traditional opera house, the Winspear seats 2,200 (with a capacity of 2,300) in a traditional horseshoe configuration. The facility is the home of The

Dallas Opera The Dallas Opera is an American opera company located in Dallas, Texas. The company performs at the Margot and Bill Winspear Opera House, one venue of the AT&T Performing Arts Center. History The company was founded in 1957 as the Dallas Civi ...

(which until the 2008/2009 season performed at the Music Hall at Fair Park) and the Texas Ballet Theater. The AT&T Performing Arts Center also produces original programming and partners with local and national organizations to present a wide range of other cultural performances at the venue. These offerings include music, dance, Broadway shows, concerts and lectures. The Winspear Opera House includes the Nancy Hamon Education and Recital Hall, a space that can be used for smaller performances seating audiences up to 200, as well as classes, rehearsals, meetings and events.

History

Groundbreaking for the AT&T Performing Arts Center and Winspear Opera House was held in October 2006. The venue was designed by

Foster and Partners Foster + Partners is a British architectural, engineering, and integrated design practice founded in 1967 as Foster Associates by Norman Foster. It is the largest architectural firm in the UK with over 1,500 employees in 13 studios worldwide ...

(principal architect: Spencer de Grey) and made possible in part by a $42-million gift from Margot and Bill Winspear, for whom the facility is named. The London fir
Sound Space Design
(principal acoustician: Robert Essert) developed the acoustical design of the opera house and the acoustics were engineered specifically for performances of opera and musical theater. Theatre planning and theatre equipment design were b
Theatre Projects Consultants
The stages were also equipped with appropriate flooring for performances of ballet and other forms of dance. The opera house was presented to the public with tours and performances during the center's opening week, October 12 – 18, 2009. The first opera performance took place on October 23, 2009 with Verdi's ''

Otello ''Otello'' () is an opera in four acts by Giuseppe Verdi to an Italian libretto by Arrigo Boito, based on Shakespeare's play '' Othello''. It was Verdi's penultimate opera, first performed at the Teatro alla Scala, Milan, on 5 February 1887. ...

'', conducted by

Graeme Jenkins Graeme James Ewers Jenkins (born 1958 in London, United Kingdom) is a British conductor, specializing in opera. He read music at the University of Cambridge, and later studied conducting at the Royal College of Music. He worked with Norman Del M ...

Design Features

The Annette and Harold Simmons Signature Glass Façade wraps around the building, creating a transparency between the opera house and the surrounding Performance Park. An wide section of the glass façade is retractable to a height of , literally opening up the Grand Lobby, Cafe and Box Circle-level Restaurant to Performance Park. The Grand Portico, radiating from the opera house on all sides, provides shade over of the Performance Park. The solar canopy's louvers are arranged at fixed angles following the path of the sun. By eliminating most direct sunlight on the façade and by creating a cooler microclimate around the building, the canopy significantly reduce the energy requirements of the Winspear Opera House. In May 2009 artist

Guillermo Kuitca Guillermo Kuitca (born 1961 in Buenos Aires) is an Argentine artist, who continues to work and live in Buenos Aires. Kuitca's work has been shown extensively around the globe, and is included in many important public collections, including The T ...

was commissioned to design the stage curtain. The design abstracts the seating plan for the Winspear's Margaret McDermott Performance Hall and reproduces this image onto the curtain itself. A key design feature is the 318-rod chandelier located inside the performance hall, named The Moody Foundation Chandelier. The chandelier hangs 50 feet below the ceiling. Starting Friday, June 28, 2013, the traditional pre-performance ascent of The Moody Chandelier has been accompanied by an exclusively adapted piece “The Light” by American composer

Philip Glass Philip Glass (born January 31, 1937) is an American composer and pianist. He is widely regarded as one of the most influential composers of the late 20th century. Glass's work has been associated with minimalism, being built up from repetitive ...

.Chandelier in Winspear Named After $5M Gift From the Moody Foundation
/ref> Once retracted into the ceiling, it leaves the impression of a star lit night, as each rod has the ability to "twinkle." The acrylic rods are illuminated by three primary color LEDs which allows the chandelier to be lit in virtually any color.

References

External links

Dallas Center for the Performing Arts website
{{Authority control Opera houses in Texas Texas classical music Foster and Partners buildings Theatre in Dallas Buildings and structures in Dallas Music venues completed in 2009 Concert halls in Texas Concert halls in Dallas Music venues in Texas Music venues in Dallas Theatres completed in 2009