It is hard to know exactly when a point in a process becomes the beginning of something.
#Chandeliers at the metropolitan opera house full#
Two large rehearsal halls (situated three floors below the stage) have nearly the dimensions of the Main Stage, allowing for blocking rehearsals and space for full orchestra set ups.Beginnings are arbitrary, accidental and mysterious. The auditorium only makes up around 1/4 of the entire building- massive storage spaces below the stage allow for production storage within the opera house, and large workshops for scenery construction, costumes, wigs and electric equipment, as well as kitchens, offices, an employee canteen and dressing room spaces for the principals, chorus, supernumeraries, ballet and children's chorus surround the stage complex on multiple floors. The large and highly mechanized stage and support space smoothly facilitates the rotating presentation of up to four different opera productions each week. The stage contains 7 hydraulic elevators that are 60 ft (18 m) wide, with double decks three slipstages (large spaces on either side of and behind the main stage, each capable of holding a complete stage setting), the upstage one containing a 60 ft (18 m) diameter turntable 103 motorized battens (linesets) for overhead lifting and two 100 ft (30 m)-tall fully enveloping cycloramas. The overall dimensions of the stage with wing space are 90 ft (27 m) deep and 103 ft (31 m) wide. The stage complex is one of the largest and most complex of its kind in the world, extending 80 ft (24 m) deep from the curtain line to the rear wall. A restaurant occupies space on the Grand Tier level, and spaces for patrons, guild members and the Metropolitan Opera Club exist as well throughout the lobbies.
The lobby also contains sculptures by Aristide Maillol and Wilhelm Lehmbruck as well as portraits of notable performers and members of the Met company. Twelve of the chandeliers in the auditorium are on motorized winches, and raised to the ceiling prior to performances so as not to obstruct sight lines of the audience on the upper levels. The chandeliers were donated by the Vienna State Opera as repayment for American help in its reconstruction after World War II. The centerpiece of the lobby is an array of eleven crystal chandeliers resembling constellations with sparkly moons and satellites the auditorium contains 21 matching chandeliers, the largest of which measures 18 ft (5.5 m) in diameter. The multi-story lobby is dominated by a concrete and terrazzo cantilevered stairway that connects the main level with the lower level lounges and upper floors. After a long process of redesigns, revisions and opposing interests (provided by the Met wanting a more traditional design for its home, and the conflicting wishes of the architects of the other Lincoln Center venues), construction of Harrison's forty-third design of the Metropolitan Opera House began in the winter of 1963- the last of the three major Lincoln Center venues to be completed. As chief architect again for the development of Lincoln Center, Harrison was chosen to design the new opera house- to be built as the centerpiece of the new performing arts complex. Young Rockefeller Center architect Wallace Harrison would be approached some 20 years later by officers of the New York Philharmonic Society and the Met to develop a new home for both institutions. replaced the opera house with a 70-story skyscraper, opened as the RCA Building in 1933. With the development moving forward, John D. The development that what would become today's Rockefeller Center was originally to have a new 4,000-seat opera house at its center, but financial problems and the following stock market crash of 1929 postponed the relocation of the Metropolitan Opera, and the complex became more commercial-based. Planning for a new home for the Metropolitan Opera began as early as the mid-1920s, when the backstage facilities of the former house were becoming vastly inadequate for growing repertory and advancing stagecraft.
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