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

opera house An opera house is a theater building used for performances of opera. Like many theaters, it usually includes a stage, an orchestra pit, audience seating, backstage facilities for costumes and building sets, as well as offices for the institut ...

located at 20 North Wacker Drive in

Chicago Chicago is the List of municipalities in Illinois, most populous city in the U.S. state of Illinois and in the Midwestern United States. With a population of 2,746,388, as of the 2020 United States census, 2020 census, it is the List of Unite ...

. The Civic's main performance space, named for

Ardis Krainik Ardis Joan Krainik (March 8, 1929 – January 18, 1997) was an American mezzo-soprano opera singer who was the general director of the Lyric Opera of Chicago for 15 years. Background Krainik was born and raised in Manitowoc, Wisconsin, the daug ...

, seats 3,276, making it the second-largest opera auditorium in North America, after the Metropolitan Opera House. Built for the Chicago Civic Opera, it has been home to the

Lyric Opera of Chicago Lyric Opera of Chicago is an American opera company based in Chicago, Illinois. The company was founded in Chicago in 1954, under the name 'Lyric Theatre of Chicago' by Carol Fox (Chicago opera), Carol Fox, Nicola Rescigno and Lawrence Kelly, w ...

since 1954 and the

Joffrey Ballet The Joffrey Ballet is an American dance company and training institution in Chicago, Illinois. The Joffrey regularly performs classical and contemporary ballets during its annual performance season at the Civic Opera House, including its annual ...

since 2021. 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 (), is a style of visual arts, architecture, and product design that first Art Deco in Paris, appeared in Paris in the 1910s just before World War I and flourished in the United States and Europe during the 1920 ...

details.

History

Samuel Insull Samuel Insull (November 11, 1859 – July 16, 1938) was a British American business magnate. He was an innovator and investor based in Chicago who helped create an integrated electrical infrastructure in the United States. Insull created hold ...

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 who were responsible for numerous buildings in the downtown

Chicago Loop The Loop is Chicago's central business district and one of the city's 77 municipally recognized Community areas in Chicago, community areas. Located at the center of downtown Chicago on the shores of Lake Michigan, it is the second-largest busi ...

(including the art deco

Merchandise Mart The Merchandise Mart (or the Merch Mart, or the Mart) is a commercial building in Chicago Loop, downtown Chicago, Illinois. When it opened in 1930, it was the List of largest buildings, world's largest building, with of floor space. The Art De ...

and the former

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

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 to produce architectural sculpture for the building. The Indiana 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 (Enrico) Liva. The inaugural season was marked by the première of ''Camille,'' a modern opera by 28-year-old Chicago-composer Hamilton Forrest July 15, 1929. It was commissioned by the Civic Opera's prime star and manager,

Mary Garden Mary Garden (20 February 1874 – 3 January 1967) was a Scottish-American operatic lyric soprano, then mezzo-soprano, with a substantial career in France and America in the first third of the 20th century. She spent the latter part of her chil ...

. 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. The facility underwent a major renovation in 1993 when Lyric Opera of Chicago purchased the space after years of renting. 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 director, actor, writer, producer, and magician who is remembered for his innovative work in film, radio, and theatre. He is among the greatest and most influential film ...

's film, ''

Citizen Kane ''Citizen Kane'' is a 1941 American Drama (film and television), drama film directed by, produced by and starring Orson Welles and co-written by Welles and Herman J. Mankiewicz. It was Welles's List of directorial debuts, first feature film. ...

''. 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 Urban legend (sometimes modern legend, urban myth, or simply legend) is a genre of folklore concerning stories about an unusual (usually scary) or humorous event that many people believe to be true but largely are not. These legends can be e ...

is that Samuel Insull built this opera house for his wife, who was not hired by New York's

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

. 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 an actress, 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

{{coord, 41.8823, -87.6373, type:landmark_region:US-IL, display=title 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