Official Website Of The Grand 1894 Opera House
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The taste for luxury and extravagance at the French theatre declined after the 1848 revolution, and new productions on the previous scale were not so commercially viable. The popular Faust (1859) by Charles Gounod started life as an opéra comique and did not become a grand opera until rewritten in the 1860s. Les Troyens by Hector Berlioz (composed 1856–1858, later revised), was not given a full performance until nearly a century after Berlioz had died, although portions had been staged before, but the spirit of this work is far removed from the bourgeois taste of the grand opera of the 1830s and 1840s.
A Place to Celebrate The Arts
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The first opera house in Galveston was the Tremont Opera House, built in 1871 at the corner of Tremont and Market Streets. It was so successful that, after 24 years, Galveston needed a larger theater for its performing arts events. The manager of the Tremont, Henry Greenwall, raised $100,000 (more than $3.5 million today) to build a grand opera house in 1894. Architect Frank Cox designed the Romanesque Revival-style building that included not only the theater, but also shops, a café, and a hotel, creating an entertainment and social hub for the Galveston downtown area.
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Rosenberg Library
After the show, grab a drink or a bite to eat at one of the bars and restaurants in the Galveston’s Cultural Arts District that are just a short walk away. Since it opened its doors in 1895, the theater has hosted some of the world’s greatest entertainers, including Anna Pavlova, Carole Burnett, Ray Charles, and Willie Nelson. This tradition is alive and well today, which is why the theater was designated as “The Official Opera House of Texas” by the 73rd Legislature, and one of the must-see attractions in Galveston.
Les Talens Lyriques
A large, bronze statue of a woman holding a torch stands on the newel post on The Grand staircase. Inside the theater auditorium, red, velvet curtains frame the stage and eight opera boxes. The stage curtain (originally painted by architect Frank Cox) is a replication of the original, depicting “Sappho and Companions”. An exploration of historic Los Angeles theatres including the grand movie palaces, neighborhood cinemas, and legitimate playhouses. Having made a fortune in his stewardship of the Opéra, Véron cannily handed on his concession to Henri Duponchel, who continued his winning formula, if not to such financial reward.
Grand opera
However, he soon showed himself extremely shrewd at discerning public taste by investing heavily in the grand opera formula. His first new production was a work long contracted from Meyerbeer, whose premiere had been delayed by the Revolution. As Berlioz commented, Meyerbeer had "not only the luck to be talented, but the talent to be lucky."[5] Meyerbeer's new opera Robert le diable chimed well with the liberal sentiments of 1830s France. Moreover, its potent mixture of melodrama, spectacle, titillation (including a ballet of the ghosts of debauched nuns), and dramatic arias and choruses went down extremely well with the new leaders of taste, the affluent bourgeoisie. The Grand 1894 Opera House hosts performances throughout the year, with its main performing arts season starting in mid-September and ending in May.
The Bride of Frankenstein with Live Orchestra
Between 1838 and 1850, the Paris Opéra staged numerous grand operas of which the most notable were Halévy’s La reine de Chypre (1841) and Charles VI (1843), Donizetti's La favorite and Les martyrs (1840) and Dom Sébastien (1843, librettos by Scribe), and Meyerbeer's Le prophète (1849) (Scribe again). 1847 saw the premiere of Giuseppe Verdi's first opera for Paris, Jérusalem, an adaptation, meeting the grand opera conventions, of his earlier I Lombardi alla prima crociata. The resourceful Rossini, having largely created a style of Italian opera to which European theatre had been in thrall, recognized the potential of new technology which included larger theatres and orchestras and modern instrumentation. He proved in this work that he could rise to meet them in this undoubted grand opera. However, his comfortable financial position, and the change in political climate after the July Revolution, persuaded him to quit the field. Not only did going to the opera allow people to enjoy a beautiful art form, it also provided an opportunity for them to socialize with their peers.
Venue Seating Chart
It was not unusual for Wood to design theaters in buildings that were designed by other architects. As the theater district of Los Angeles shifted south and west, and larger, more modern theaters such as the Burbank, the Hippodrome and, in 1905, the new Mason Opera House on Broadway opened, the fortunes of the Grand Theater declined. By 1910, it had become a movie house, and by 1920, second run movies were being shown for an admission price of ten cents. Operas, plays, and musical performers all appeared on the stage of the Grand, including, in 1887, the famous Edwin Booth. However, perhaps the most significant fact of the theater’s history for Angelenos is that, in December of 1894, it became the first Los Angeles home of the Orpheum Vaudeville Circuit.
Welcoming Artists. Engaging Audiences. Celebrating History.
It opened on January 3, 1895 with a live performance of the play, The Daughters of Eve.
Leah Price
A later generation of Galvestonians renewed that commitment with equal vision when they undertook to save and restore The Grand in 1974. The Director of Communications of Library Foundation of Los Angeles is also a DTLA resident, looking forward to the opening of The Grand LA. As DTLA's shopping scene flourishes, The Shops at The Grand will bring together three levels of essential urban retail into one spectacular setting. From elemental to exceptional, this inspired collection of shops will cater to distinct audiences, and every storefront will be oriented around Frank Gehry's stunning "urban room." In a city known as a dynamic and delicious food metropolis, The Grand offers an ensemble of indispensable high end restaurants and casual all-day-eateries, each facing the stunning Walt Disney Concert Hall, serving the next generation of defining LA dishes. The store will remain open until July, offering exclusive merchandise celebrating the acclaimed Jean-Michel Basquiat King Pleasure© exhibition.
The expensive artifacts of grand opera (which also demanded expensive singers)—Les Huguenots was known as 'the night of the seven stars' because of its requirement of seven top-grade artistes—meant that they were economically the most vulnerable as new repertoire developed. Hence they lost pride of place at the Paris Opéra (especially when many of the original stage sets were lost in fire in the late 19th century). However, as late as 1917, the Gaîté-Lyrique devoted an entire season to the genre, including Halévy's La reine de Chypre. For production statistics of grand opera in Paris, see List of performances of French grand operas at the Paris Opéra. Though the Grand was able to weather natural disasters, the slow progress of technology proved to be more damaging.
Over the decades, opera became a less popular form of entertainment with the rise of vaudeville shows and movies. In 1924, the Grand was sold to Atillio Martini, who renamed it the Martini Theatre and installed projectors and an organ to accompany silent films. Looking north toward 1st St. It's a photo in the Herald Examiner collection of the Los Angeles Public Library.
Galvestonians were no exception – Galveston has been home to multiple opera houses, including the Grand 1894 Opera House, which has stood for over 100 years. Your generous support helps The Grand, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit, provide meaningful and diverse performing arts events, children’s arts activities, and other cultural arts and entertainment opportunities to our community and visitors. As Keysor and Morgan had never designed a big theater, it seems likely that Ozro Childs would have wanted to have an established theater architect working with the local firm on such a major project.
As further recognition of its importance to the citizens of Texas, in 1993 the 73rd Texas Legislature proclaimed The Grand “The Official Opera House of Texas“. Each season, The Grand offers a selection of performances to area students and school groups. All of The Grand’s children’s programs feature professional touring companies who have sterling reputations for high-quality productions.
Notice that the short, multi-globed streetlamps have now been replaced by tall ones with two globes on that block, but not on the adjacent corner on the left, and the marquee has been completely sheared off to make room for a large blade sign. The building to the right has been “modernized,” stripping off its Victorian ornamentation while keeping its pointing finger logo with its address (?) of 118, and the short multi-globed streetlight is still out front. I was lucky to stumble upon a brief biography of the elder Octavius Morgan, which reveled his connection to Keysor and to the Grand. He was born in Canterbury in 1850 (no date given, unfortunately) and studied architecture in England (no indication of exactly where) before emigrating to the United States in 1871. He was in Denver two years before moving to Los Angeles, so he must have been 23. Keysor was born in 1835, and thus quite a bit older than his new business partner.
Step in to this historic Galveston theater and you’ll feel as if you have been transported to the past. A grand wooden stage stands at the front of a three-tiered auditorium framed by private boxes and walls decorated with intricate patterns similar to those found in great opera houses around the world. The stately interior décor showcases the opera house’s long history as a top-tier performing arts venue. Over the years, it has survived three hurricanes, including the infamous 1900 storm and Hurricane Ike in 2008, and was restored each time by the people of Galveston. The most significant development, or transformation, of grand opera after the 1850s was its handling by Giuseppe Verdi, whose Les vêpres siciliennes (1855), proved to be more widely given in Italy and other Italian-language opera houses than in France.
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