Grand Theatre Leeds
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The Grand Theatre (also known as Leeds Grand Theatre and Leeds Grand Theatre and Opera House) is a theatre and Opera house in the centre of Leeds, UK. It was designed by James Robinson Watson, chief assistant in the office of Leeds-based architect George Corson, and opened on 18 November, 1878. The exterior is in a mixture of Romanesque and Scottish baronial styles, while the interior has such Gothic motifs as fan-vaulting and clustered columns. It seats approximately 1,500 people.
The theatre is home to Opera North and is regularly visited by Northern Ballet Theatre. It has hosted many touring productions, musical artists and comedians.
The theatre closed at the end of May 2005 for a major refurbishment, entitled transformation, and re-opened on 7 October 2006 with a production of Verdi's Rigoletto. The Stalls area has been completely re-seated and re-raked, the orchestra-pit has been enlarged, air-conditioning has been installed, backstage technical facilities have been dramatically improved, and Opera North now has its own Opera Centre to the south of the theatre, accessible via a bridge and at street-level. The Centre includes two new stage-sized rehearsal spaces and increased office space. The cost of the refurbishment has been estimated at £31.5m.
A second phase of transformation, for which fund-raising is now in progress, aims to restore the Assembly Rooms, a forgotten performance space on the first floor of the theatre building. The Assembly Rooms opened in 1879 and functioned as the Plaza Cinema between 1912 and 1978 and subsequently as a rehearsal space for Opera North.
[edit] Bibliography
Derek Linstrum (1978). "West Yorkshire Architects and Architecture" Lund Humphries Publishers, ISBN 0-85331-410-1
