Margot and Bill Winspear Opera House
Encyclopedia
The Margot and Bill Winspear Opera House is an opera house
(one of four venues in the AT&T Performing Arts Center
) located in the Arts District of downtown
Dallas
, Texas
(USA
).
Designed as a 21st century reinterpretation of the traditional opera house, the Winspear seats 2,200 (with a capacity of 2,300) in a traditional horseshoe configuration.
The facility is the home of The Dallas Opera (which up until the 2008/2009 season performed at the Music Hall at Fair Park
) and the Texas Ballet Theater
. The AT&T Performing Arts Center also produces original programming and partners with local and national organizations to present a wide range of other cultural performances at the venue. These offerings include music, dance, Broadway shows, concerts and lectures.
The Winspear Opera House includes the Nancy Hamon Education and Recital Hall, a space that can be used for smaller performances seating audiences up to 200, as well as classes, rehearsals, meetings and events.
The venue was designed by Foster and Partners
(principal architect: Spencer de Grey
) and made possible in part by a $42-million gift from Margot and Bill Winspear, for whom the facility is named. The London firm Sound Space Design (principal acoustician: Robert Essert) developed the acoustical design of the opera house and the acoustics were engineered specifically for performances of opera and musical theater. The stages were also equipped with appropriate flooring for performances of ballet and other forms of dance.
The opera house was presented to the public with tours and performances during the Center’s opening week, October 12 – 18, 2009. The first opera performance took place on October 23, 2009 with Verdi's Otello
, conducted by Graeme Jenkins
and starring Clifton Forbis, Alexandra Deshorties
, and Lado Ataneli.
The Grand Portico, radiating from the opera house on all sides, provides shade over 3 acres (12,140.6 m²) of the Performance Park. The solar canopy's louvers are arranged at fixed angles following the path of the sun. By eliminating most direct sunlight on the façade and by creating a cooler microclimate around the building, the canopy significantly reduce the energy requirements of the Winspear Opera House.
In May 2009 artist Guillermo Kuitca
was commissioned to design the stage curtain. The design abstracts the seating plan for the Winspear’s Margaret McDermott Performance Hall and reproduces this image onto the curtain itself.
A key design feature is the 318-rod chandelier located inside the performance hall. The chandelier hangs 50 feet below the ceiling. Once retracted into the ceiling, it leaves the impression of a star lit night, as each rod has the ability to "twinkle." The acrylic rods are illuminated by three primary color LEDs which allows the chandelier to be lit in virtually any color.
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...
(one of four venues in the AT&T Performing Arts Center
AT&T Performing Arts Center
The AT&T Performing Arts Center, preliminarily referred to as the Dallas Center for the Performing Arts is a $354 million multi-venue center in the Dallas Arts District for performances of opera, musical theater, classic and experimental theater, ballet and other forms of dance...
) located in the Arts District of downtown
Downtown Dallas
Downtown Dallas is the Central Business District in Dallas, Texas USA, located in the geographic center of the city. The area termed "Downtown" has traditionally been defined as bounded by the downtown freeway loop: bounded on the east by I-345 Downtown Dallas is the Central Business District...
Dallas
Dallas, Texas
Dallas is the third-largest city in Texas and the ninth-largest in the United States. The Dallas-Fort Worth Metroplex is the largest metropolitan area in the South and fourth-largest metropolitan area in the United States...
, Texas
Texas
Texas is the second largest U.S. state by both area and population, and the largest state by area in the contiguous United States.The name, based on the Caddo word "Tejas" meaning "friends" or "allies", was applied by the Spanish to the Caddo themselves and to the region of their settlement in...
(USA
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
).
Designed as a 21st century reinterpretation of the traditional opera house, the Winspear seats 2,200 (with a capacity of 2,300) in a traditional horseshoe configuration.
The facility is the home of The Dallas Opera (which up until the 2008/2009 season performed at the Music Hall at Fair Park
Music Hall at Fair Park
The Music Hall at Fair Park is a 3,420 seat performing arts facility in Dallas's Fair Park that opened on October 10, 1925.The building is of Spanish Baroque style with Moorish architectural influences, containing six stair towers capped with cast domes and arcade porches overlooking Fair Park...
) and the Texas Ballet Theater
Texas Ballet Theater
The Texas Ballet Theater was founded by Margo Dean in 1961 as the Fort Worth Ballet, in Fort Worth, Texas. It became a professional ballet company in 1985. In 1988 the company began adding performances in Dallas. It became the Fort Worth Dallas Ballet in 1994, then was renamed Texas Ballet Theater...
. The AT&T Performing Arts Center also produces original programming and partners with local and national organizations to present a wide range of other cultural performances at the venue. These offerings include music, dance, Broadway shows, concerts and lectures.
The Winspear Opera House includes the Nancy Hamon Education and Recital Hall, a space that can be used for smaller performances seating audiences up to 200, as well as classes, rehearsals, meetings and events.
History
Groundbreaking for the AT&T Performing Arts Center and Winspear Opera House was held in October 2006.The venue was designed by Foster and Partners
Foster and Partners
Foster + Partners is an architectural firm based in London. The practice is led by its founder and Chairman, Norman Foster, and has constructed many high-profile glass-and-steel buildings....
(principal architect: Spencer de Grey
Spencer de Grey
Spencer Thomas de Grey, CBE RIBA was born in 1944 in Farnham, Surrey, son of artists Capt. Sir Roger de Grey and Flavia Hatt Irwin. He married Hon. Amanda Lucy Annan in 1977 and has two children.- Early career :...
) and made possible in part by a $42-million gift from Margot and Bill Winspear, for whom the facility is named. The London firm Sound Space Design (principal acoustician: Robert Essert) developed the acoustical design of the opera house and the acoustics were engineered specifically for performances of opera and musical theater. The stages were also equipped with appropriate flooring for performances of ballet and other forms of dance.
The opera house was presented to the public with tours and performances during the Center’s opening week, October 12 – 18, 2009. The first opera performance took place on October 23, 2009 with Verdi's Otello
Otello
Otello is an opera in four acts by Giuseppe Verdi to an Italian libretto by Arrigo Boito, based on Shakespeare's play Othello. It was Verdi's penultimate opera, and was first performed at the Teatro alla Scala, Milan, on February 5, 1887....
, conducted by Graeme Jenkins
Graeme Jenkins
Graeme James Ewers Jenkins is a British conductor, specializing in opera. He read music at the University of Cambridge, and later studied conducting at the Royal College of Music. He worked with Norman Del Mar and Sir David Willcocks, and as an Adrian Boult Conducting Scholar, Jenkins conducted...
and starring Clifton Forbis, Alexandra Deshorties
Alexandra Deshorties
Alexandra Deshorties is a French-Canadian soprano, and sings principally opera. She was born in Canada and raised in Marseilles, France....
, and Lado Ataneli.
Design Features
The Annette and Harold Simmons Signature Glass Façade wraps around the building, creating a transparency between the opera house and the surrounding Performance Park. An 84 feet (25.6 m) wide section of the glass façade is retractable to a height of 23 feet (7 m), literally opening up the Grand Lobby, Cafe and Box Circle-level Restaurant to Performance Park.The Grand Portico, radiating from the opera house on all sides, provides shade over 3 acres (12,140.6 m²) of the Performance Park. The solar canopy's louvers are arranged at fixed angles following the path of the sun. By eliminating most direct sunlight on the façade and by creating a cooler microclimate around the building, the canopy significantly reduce the energy requirements of the Winspear Opera House.
In May 2009 artist Guillermo Kuitca
Guillermo Kuitca
Guillermo Kuitca is an Argentinean artist who was born in Buenos Aires in 1961, where he continues to work and live. Kuitca's work has been shown extensively around the globe, and is included in many important public collection, including The Tate Gallery, England; The Metropolitan Museum of Art,...
was commissioned to design the stage curtain. The design abstracts the seating plan for the Winspear’s Margaret McDermott Performance Hall and reproduces this image onto the curtain itself.
A key design feature is the 318-rod chandelier located inside the performance hall. The chandelier hangs 50 feet below the ceiling. Once retracted into the ceiling, it leaves the impression of a star lit night, as each rod has the ability to "twinkle." The acrylic rods are illuminated by three primary color LEDs which allows the chandelier to be lit in virtually any color.