The Chicago Opera House, (constructed in 1884–5) was a theater complex in Chicago, Illinois, USA, designed by the architectural firm of Cobb and Frost. The Chicago Opera House building took the cue provided by the Metropolitan Opera of New York as a mixed-used building: it housed both a theater and unrelated offices, used to subsidize the cost of the theater building. The theater itself was located in the middle of the complex and office structures flanked each side. The entire complex was known as the "Chicago Opera House Block," and was located at the Southwest corner of W. Washington Ave. and N. Clark St.
The Chicago Opera House was opened to the public on August 18, 1885. The first performance in the new theater was of Hamlet starring Thomas W. Keene. From 1887 to 1890, the Chicago Opera House served as the official observation location for recording the climate of the city of Chicago by the National Weather Service.
The theater suffered a fire in December 1888, which mainly damaged portions of the roof. However, the roof was repaired, and most of the exterior of the building remained undamaged. During its existence, the Chicago Opera House was the site of the premiere of several successful musicals such as Sinbad and The Arabian Nights.
The last performance at the building was the stage play "The Escape" by Paul Armstrong (later made into a film, now lost, by D.W. Griffith in 1914). Demolition on The Chicago Opera House began May 5, 1913. The site is currently occupied by the Burnham Center (formerly known as the Conway Building), completed in 1915.
Read more about Chicago Opera House: Construction
Famous quotes containing the words chicago, opera and/or house:
“Ethnic life in the United States has become a sort of contest like baseball in which the blacks are always the Chicago Cubs.”
—Ishmael Reed (b. 1938)
“If music in general is an imitation of history, opera in particular is an imitation of human willfulness; it is rooted in the fact that we not only have feelings but insist upon having them at whatever cost to ourselves.... The quality common to all the great operatic roles, e.g., Don Giovanni, Norma, Lucia, Tristan, Isolde, Brünnhilde, is that each of them is a passionate and willful state of being. In real life they would all be bores, even Don Giovanni.”
—W.H. (Wystan Hugh)
“Our law very often reminds one of those outskirts of cities where you cannot for a long time tell how the streets come to wind about in so capricious and serpent-like a manner. At last it strikes you that they grew up, house by house, on the devious tracks of the old green lanes; and if you follow on to the existing fields, you may often find the change half complete.”
—Walter Bagehot (1826–1877)