The Civic Opera House is an opera house

Opera house

An opera house is a theatre building used for opera performances that consists of a stage, an orchestra pit, audience seating, and backstage facilities for costumes and set building...

 located at 20 North Wacker Drive

Wacker Drive

Wacker Drive is a major street in Chicago, Illinois, United States, running along the south side of the main branch and the east side of the south branch of the Chicago River...

 in Chicago

Chicago

Chicago is the largest city in the US state of Illinois. With nearly 2.7 million residents, it is the most populous city in the Midwestern United States and the third most populous in the US, after New York City and Los Angeles...

. It is part of a building which contains a 45-story office tower and two 22-story wings. This structure opened on November 4, 1929 and has an Art Deco

Art Deco

Art deco , or deco, is an eclectic artistic and design style that began in Paris in the 1920s and flourished internationally throughout the 1930s, into the World War II era. The style influenced all areas of design, including architecture and interior design, industrial design, fashion and...

 interior.

The Civic Opera House has 3,563-seats, making it the second-largest opera auditorium in North America

North America

North America is a continent wholly within the Northern Hemisphere and almost wholly within the Western Hemisphere. It is also considered a northern subcontinent of the Americas...

. Built for the Chicago Civic Opera, today it is the permanent home of the Lyric Opera of Chicago

Lyric Opera of Chicago

Lyric Opera of Chicago is one of the leading opera companies in the United States. It was founded in Chicago in 1952, under the name 'Lyric Theatre of Chicago' by Carol Fox, Nicolà Rescigno and Lawrence Kelly, with a season that included Maria Callas's American debut in Norma...

, which also owns the building.

History

Samuel Insull

Samuel Insull

Samuel Insull was an Anglo-American innovator and investor based in Chicago who greatly contributed to creating an integrated electrical infrastructure in the United States. Insull was notable for purchasing utilities and railroads using holding companies, as well as the abuse of them...

 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."

Samuel Insull selected the architecture firm Graham, Anderson, Probst & White

Graham, Anderson, Probst & White

Graham, Anderson, Probst & White is a Chicago architecture firm that was founded in 1912 originally as Graham, Burnham & Co. This firm was the successor to D. H. Burnham & Co. by Daniel Burnham's surviving partner Ernest Graham and Burnham's sons Hubert Burnham and Daniel Burnham Jr...

 who were responsible for several other buildings in the downtown Chicago Loop

Chicago Loop

The Loop or Chicago Loop is one of 77 officially designated Chicago community areas located in the City of Chicago, Illinois. It is the historic commercial center of downtown Chicago...

. As they did on other occasions, the architects commissioned Henry Hering

Henry Hering

Henry Hering was an American sculptor who was born New York City on February 15, 1874 and died there on January 17, 1949.-Early career:He was a student of Augustus Saint-Gaudens at Cooper Union and of Philip Martiny at the Art Students League of New York...

 to produce architectural sculpture for the building.

The inaugural season was marked by the première of Camille, a modern opera by 28-year old Chicago-composer Hamilton Forrest on July 15, 1929. It was commissioned by the Civic Opera's prime star and manager, Mary Garden

Mary Garden

Mary Garden , was a Scottish operatic soprano with a substantial career in France and America in the first third of the 20th century...

. While the opera received mixed reviews and parts of it were broadcast in the Boston area, the Civic Opera is the only house in which it has ever been performed.

The opera house underwent a major renovation in 1993 when it was purchased by the Lyric Opera of Chicago, which had previously rented the space. 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

Orson Welles

George Orson Welles , best known as Orson Welles, was an American film director, actor, theatre director, screenwriter, and producer, who worked extensively in film, theatre, television and radio...

's film, Citizen Kane

Citizen Kane

Citizen Kane is a 1941 American drama film, directed by and starring Orson Welles. Many critics consider it the greatest American film of all time, especially for its innovative cinematography, music and narrative structure. Citizen Kane was Welles' first feature film...

. In order for his aspiring opera singer wife to perform, Charles Foster Kane

Charles Foster Kane

Charles Foster Kane is a fictional character and the subject of Orson Welles' 1941 film Citizen Kane. Welles played Kane , with Buddy Swan playing Kane as a child...

 builds an opera house for her, but the quality of her singing reveals her ineptitude. In reality, Samuel Insull built this opera house for his wife, who was not hired by New York's Metropolitan Opera

Metropolitan Opera

The Metropolitan Opera is an opera company, located in New York City. Originally founded in 1880, the company gave its first performance on October 22, 1883. The company is operated by the non-profit Metropolitan Opera Association, with Peter Gelb as general manager...

.

During the 1950s and 1960s the building was identified by a large "Kemper Insurance" sign, although it was not that company's headquarters.

External links

• Civic Opera House website
• 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 - ie curtains, back-drops, movable stages, lighting, etc
• Chicago landmarks web site with photos of the building