The Boston Opera House, also known as the Citizens Bank Opera House, is a performing arts and
esports
Esports (), short for electronic sports, is a form of competition using video games. Esports often takes the form of organized, multiplayer video game competitions, particularly between professional players, played individually or as teams. ...
venue located at 539 Washington St. in
Boston
Boston is the capital and most populous city in the Commonwealth (U.S. state), Commonwealth of Massachusetts in the United States. The city serves as the cultural and Financial centre, financial center of New England, a region of the Northeas ...
,
Massachusetts
Massachusetts ( ; ), officially the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, is a U.S. state, state in the New England region of the Northeastern United States. It borders the Atlantic Ocean and the Gulf of Maine to its east, Connecticut and Rhode ...
. It was originally built as the B.F. Keith Memorial Theatre, a
movie palace
A movie palace (or picture palace in the United Kingdom) is a large, elaborately decorated movie theater built from the 1910s to the 1940s. The late 1920s saw the peak of the movie palace, with hundreds opening every year between 1925 and 1930. Wi ...
in the
Keith-Albee chain. The chain became part of
RKO when it was established just before the theater opened on October 29, 1928, and it was also known as the RKO Keith's Theater. After operating for more than 50 years as a movie theater, it was rededicated in 1980 as a home for the
Opera Company of Boston
The Opera Company of Boston was an American opera company located in Boston, Massachusetts, that was active from the late 1950s through the 1980s. The company was founded by American conducting, conductor Sarah Caldwell in 1958 under the name Bo ...
, which performed there until the opera company closed down in 1990 due to financial problems. The theater was reopened in 2004 after a major restoration, and it currently serves as the home of the
Boston Ballet and also hosts touring Broadway shows.
History
The Boston Opera House was originally designed as the B.F. Keith Memorial Theatre, a lavish
movie theater
A movie theater (American English) or cinema (English in the Commonwealth of Nations, Commonwealth English), also known as a movie house, cinema hall, picture house, picture theater, the movies, the pictures, or simply theater, is a business ...
in the Keith-Albee chain. The Keith's Memorial was one of his most elaborate designs of the prominent theater architect
Thomas W. Lamb. It was dedicated to the vaudeville pioneer
B.F. Keith. On October 23, 1928, just before the theater opened, the
Radio-Keith-Orpheum (RKO) company was formed and became the owner of the theater. The theater opened on October 29, 1928, presenting first-run films along with live
vaudeville
Vaudeville (; ) is a theatrical genre of variety entertainment which began in France in the middle of the 19th century. A ''vaudeville'' was originally a comedy without psychological or moral intentions, based on a comical situation: a drama ...
.
By 1929, the theater had converted to showing only films and remained a leading Boston movie showcase through the 1950s. It became known as RKO Keith's, and bore signage that said both "B.F. Keith's" and "RKO Keith's" (see the 1938 photo shown at right).
In 1965 the Sack Theaters company acquired the theater and renamed it the Savoy Theater. Sack later added a second smaller cinema in the theater's stage space, separated from the original auditorium by a masonry wall built across the proscenium.
In 1980, after closing as a movie house, the theater became the home of opera director
Sarah Caldwell's
Opera Company of Boston
The Opera Company of Boston was an American opera company located in Boston, Massachusetts, that was active from the late 1950s through the 1980s. The company was founded by American conducting, conductor Sarah Caldwell in 1958 under the name Bo ...
and was renamed the Boston Opera House. The theater was acquired and renovated by the
opera
Opera is a form of History of theatre#European theatre, Western theatre in which music is a fundamental component and dramatic roles are taken by Singing, singers. Such a "work" (the literal translation of the Italian word "opera") is typically ...
company with the help of Boston arts patron Susan Timken. After a decade of opera productions at the house, Caldwell's company collapsed due to financial troubles in 1991. Having previously produced opera since 1958 in rented theaters, the company was not financially prepared to cope with the substantial costs of upkeep for the large theater which had previously been poorly maintained for decades. The company's failure left the theater dark and without funds to maintain it.
Unheated, the building fell prey to extensive water damage, severely damaging the electrical system and the decorative plaster interior of the auditorium.
[ The company's costumes, collected for decades and stored under the damaged roof, were lost. In 1996, the former opera company relinquished ownership of the building.]
Mayor Thomas Menino, with the aid of Senator Edward Kennedy (whose father, Joseph
Joseph is a common male name, derived from the Hebrew (). "Joseph" is used, along with " Josef", mostly in English, French and partially German languages. This spelling is also found as a variant in the languages of the modern-day Nordic count ...
, was RKO's founder and original financier), helped to get the theater landmark status in 1999 through the Boston Landmarks Commission. After a series of failed or delayed development proposals, Clear Channel's live/concert division, today's Live Nation
Live Nation Entertainment, Inc. is an American multinational Entertainment industry, entertainment company that was founded in 2010 following the Mergers and acquisitions, merger of Live Nation (events promoter), Live Nation and Ticketmaster. It ...
, agreed to renovate the theater. The need to enlarge the trapezoidal stage house into the street between buildings provoked a multi-year court fight with the neighboring Tremont on the Commons condominium building, whose concerns with fire safety were eventually overcome with the persuasion of Mayor Menino.
The Boston opera community welcomed the efforts of Mayor Menino and Clear Channel to refurbish the Opera House and the damaged interior was restored in a $38 million renovation. It reopened on July 16, 2004, with the Broadway production of ''The Lion King''. Live Nation has kept the historic theater busy and active with long runs of touring Broadway musicals and pop concerts. Though the theater was re-designed with opera in mind and Live Nation's development agreement includes a clause requiring the production of opera for fourteen days per year, the Opera House is a current-day misnomer
A misnomer is a name that is incorrectly or unsuitably applied. Misnomers often arise because something was named long before its correct nature was known, or because an earlier form of something has been replaced by a later form to which the nam ...
, as opera has yet to take place in the renovated venue.
The current owner of the theater is Boston Opera House Ventures, LLC, a partnership of local Boston businessmen Don Law and David Mugar. Its primary tenants are Broadway Across America
Broadway Across America (BAA) is a presenter and producer of live theatrical events in the United States and Canada since 1982. It is currently owned by the John Gore Organization (formerly Key Brand Entertainment), which purchased it from Live ...
, Boston Uprising and the Boston Ballet. Home to Boston Ballet's annual production of ''The Nutcracker
''The Nutcracker'' (, ), Opus number, Op. 71, is an 1892 two-act classical ballet (conceived as a '; ) by Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky, set on Christmas Eve at the foot of a Christmas tree in a child's imagination featuring a Nutcracker doll. Th ...
'' since 2005, the theater became the company's permanent home in 2009.
See also
* Boston Opera House (1909)
* Benjamin Franklin Keith
Benjamin Franklin Keith (January 26, 1846 – March 26, 1914) was an American vaudeville theater owner, who played an important role in the evolution of variety theater into vaudeville.
Biography Early years
Keith was born in Hillsboro Br ...
(1846–1914), namesake of B.F. Keith Memorial Theatre
* RKO Boston Theatre
References
External links
Boston Opera House website
* Library of Congress, Historic American Buildings Survey
B. F. Keith Memorial Theatre
539 Washington Street, Boston, Suffolk County, MA (i.e. Boston Opera House)
* Bostonian Society:
*
Photo of Washington Street at night in winter
1934
*
539–555 Washington Street
ca. 1945
*
164–164a Tremont Street
ca. 1950 (RKO Keith Theater at left)
*
504–558 Washington Street
ca. 1953
*
515–539 Washington Street
ca. 1958
* MIT:
*
Washington Street, Between Avery Street and West Street, RKO Keith's
by G. Kepes, 1956
*
Keith's RKO Theater Marquee at Night
"There's No Business Like Show Business," Washington Street, 9:30 P.M., 1950s, by G. Kepes
* City of Boston
Landmarks Commission
Boston Opera House Study Report
1999
{{Authority control
Opera House, Boston
Opera House, Boston
Opera House, Boston
Movie palaces
Ballet venues
Esports venues in the United States
Music venues completed in 1980
Buildings and structures completed in 1928
1980 establishments in Massachusetts
Opera houses in Massachusetts
Theatres completed in 1928
1928 establishments in Massachusetts
Thomas W. Lamb buildings