OPERA HOUSE IN TORONTO IS ARCHITECTURAL AND ACOUSTIC SUCCESS STORY

Nobody ever says that staging grand opera is easy. Nor do they say that grand opera is a bargain. The cast of singers is large. The orchestral resources are large. The backstage technicians are many. The sets require great stagecraft. And in addition to putting together talent, people and innovative production planning, you need an opera house.

A dedicated opera house is designed to provide the optimum acoustics for live voices on a stage and live musicians in an orchestra pit communicating to a live audience in seats that are close to the stage. There is no provision for uses other than opera and ballet. There is no accommodation for amplified sound. There is no compromise of any kind in a genuine opera house. A genuine opera house does not come cheap.

These thoughts ran through my head on May 9 as I settled into my seat in Toronto’s Four Seasons Centre for the Performing Arts. Opened in 2006, the Four Seasons Centre is the first real opera house in Canada and one of few on the North American continent. On a $31M site donated by the Province of Ontario, the architectural firm Diamond and Schmitt have created a $180M modernistic building that contains a traditional auditorium configuration based on European opera houses.

Modernism is most apparent in the ancillary structures. The five-story high “City Room” is an architectural gem that can be used for pre-performance talks on opera and ballet days, and can be rented for other meetings on days without a performance. The glass façade that fronts the City Room on University Avenue brings views of the city into the foyer, and presents a lighted beacon of the arts to the metropolis outside.

The opera house is located at the corner of Queen Street and University Avenue, one of the busiest streets in the metropolis, and is directly above a subway line. To insulate the performing space from external noise, there is an entire "building within a building." The auditorium, stage and orchestra pit are an isolated structure resting on more than 450 rubber acoustic isolation pads that damp all vibrations.

The Four Seasons Centre displays its City Room in this photograph:

For more views inside the new opera house, go to the Canadian Opera Company’s web site at http://www.coc.ca/AboutTheCOC/FourSeasonsCentre/PhotoGallery.aspx

From the 21st century City Room, you enter the auditorium, whose 2,071 seats are arranged in a proven classical design: a five-tiered horseshoe shape. The furthest seat in the fifth ring is less than 130 feet from the stage. Three-quarters of the seats are within 100 feet of the stage. The seat placement was determined through 3-dimensional computer modeling, resulting in excellent sight lines. Modernism is seen in the auditorium in its use of modern materials and some technical details such as air conditioning vents located under the seats to keep air-handling noise muffled.

Getting seats at the Four Seasons Centre for the Performing Arts is not to be taken for granted. The Canadian Opera Company boasts that it has sold 99% of all available tickets during its first three seasons in the new opera house. Working through a Member of the President’s Council (persons who contribute $2,250 or more per year to the Canadian Opera Company), I was able to get good seats for a fine performance of Benjamin Britten’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream. While no principal stood out from the rest, the entire cast, including members of the Canadian Children’s Opera Company, performed well under the baton of British conductor Ann Manson. An Australian team created the direction, set design, costumes and lighting in an outstanding production originated for Houston Grand Opera and mounted to great effect in Toronto.

As mentioned, opera is not cheap. My seat cost Cdn$136 (about US$118), a middle priced seat in a hall scaled for most performances from Cdn$60 to Cdn$290. But by comparison with the other world-class opera houses that I have attended (Vienna State Opera, Royal Opera House Covent Garden, La Scala, and the Metropolitan Opera) as well as some lesser but satisfying houses, it rates to be a bargain. The Four Seasons Centre for the Performing Arts is an outstanding piece of architecture that provides the Canadian Opera Company with a home in which to grow in stature and reputation. Plan ahead and see for yourself when you visit the cosmopolitan city that is the modern Toronto.

© 2009 Edward C. McIrvine

Arts Spectrum column #434 

May 22, 2009