This Day, That Year – January 7

This day in history we feature the Royal Opera House. An opera house and major performing arts venue in Covent Garden, central London opens on this day in 1732.

Trivia – Royal Opera House

The large building is often referred to as simply Covent Garden, after a previous use of the site. It is the home of The Royal Opera, The Royal Ballet, and the Orchestra of the Royal Opera House. The first theatre on the site, the Theatre Royal, served primarily as a playhouse for the first hundred years of its history. In 1734, the first ballet was presented. A year later, the first season of operas, by George Frideric Handel, began. Many of his operas and oratorios were specifically written for Covent Garden and had their premieres there.

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The current building is the third theatre on the site, following disastrous fires in 1808 and 1856 to previous buildings. The façade, foyer, and auditorium date from 1858, but almost every other element of the present complex dates from an extensive reconstruction in the 1990s. The main auditorium seats 2,256 people, making it the third largest in London, and consists of four tiers of boxes and balconies and the amphitheatre gallery. The proscenium is 14.80 metres wide, with the stage of the same depth and 12.20 metres high. The main auditorium is a Grade I listed building. The foundation of the Theatre Royal, Covent Garden lies in the letters patent awarded by Charles II to Sir William Davenant in 1662, allowing Davenant to operate one of only two patent theatre companies (The Duke’s Company) in London. The letters patent remained in the possession of the patentees’ heirs until the 19th century. Their whereabouts were unknown for some time, but as of 2019 they are held in the Rosenbach Museum & Library, Philadelphia. At the opening of the theatre on 7 December 1732, Rich was carried by his actors in procession into the building for its inaugural production of William Congreve’s The Way of the World. In October 2020, the BBC reported that the Royal Opera House has lost 60% of its income as a result of restrictions implemented in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. As a consequence, the 1971 “Portrait of Sir David Webster” by David Hockney, which had hung in the opera house for several decades, was put up for auction at Christie’s. It eventually sold for £12.8 million. The funds raised from the sale were needed to ensure the survival of the institution. “Significant redundancies” and an appeal for public donations have also been made. In addition, the opera house has applied for a loan to the Culture Recovery Fund.

Source – Wikipedia