Toronto Four Seasons Centre for the Performing Arts | ?m | 5s | COC | Diamond Schmitt

Hmmm... these Opera House threads seem to promote very strange conversations.
 
Hume is at it again, from the Star:

Nothing to sing about
You get what you pay for, and Toronto's new opera house is no exception
Christopher Hume laments a lost opportunity to create a symbol of greatness
Jun. 8, 2006. 01:00 AM
CHRISTOPHER HUME

In its own way, Toronto's new opera house, the Four Seasons Centre for the Performing Arts sums up this city.

It is a good facility but not grand, functional rather than flamboyant, much too modest to be marvellous. It does the job, but little more. Though it wants to be remarkable, it settles for less.

Despite having been designed for opera, it isn't operatic; it's more recitative than aria, competent rather than exciting.

At least Le Corbusier would have approved; here, finally, is a machine for performing opera. Indeed, it might well be the first facility of its kind designed more by acousticians (Soundspace Design) and theatre planners (Fisher Dachs Associates) than architects (Diamond & Schmitt). The consultants seem to have been in control of most of the big decisions, especially those concerning the hall. The acoustics have been praised to the skies, but mostly by people who have yet to hear a note either played or sung in the hall.

Whatever role architecture might have played, it was restricted for the most part to the lobby, or as it's called here, the City Room. It's the one feature that is truly engaging, much more so than the hall itself, an exercise in beige blandness.

For the most part, however, the design of the Four Seasons seems to have been largely a question of how cheaply can you build an opera house? Perhaps after the last go-round in the 1980s, when Toronto briefly flirted with the possibility of building a great hall but decided against that at the last minute, it's not surprising we're content with the ordinary.

You get what you pay for, of course, and as is so often the case in this city, we decided we were too poor to build something spectacular.

Not that's there's anything wrong with the Four Seasons; it's just that it should have been so much better. Even those elements not affected by budget, the facades, for example, are underwhelming. The decision to use a dark blue-grey brick has prompted much discussion. Some admire the subtlety of a material that changes with the light; others think it gives the opera house an unfortunately industrial appearance. Interesting to note, masonry was chosen after limestone was rejected.

More important, however, is the failure to bring life to two of the four facades. The building, bounded by University Ave., Queen St., Richmond St. and York St., is a major addition to the downtown landscape, yet the only evidence of architecture is on University and Queen. Richmond and York are write-offs. Obviously, there need to be delivery entrances and stage doors, but the architect's job is to make even these prosaic functions part of something larger.

The Four Seasons' one great gesture to urbanity is the City Room, a huge glass box that turns the audience into performers with Toronto as the backdrop. The stairwells become their stage, passersby their viewers. At night, lit from within, it becomes a lantern, beautiful, animating and entertaining. The lobby will also hold casual lunchtime performances, which should make it one of the city's most popular spaces.

The fact that the building contains a subway entrance enhances the urban feel of the opera house wonderfully, as does the small square that has been carved out of the corner of University and Queen. Though not large enough to change the intersection, the space will also bring life to the area, and help make it more public and celebratory.

The Queen side does have a relationship with the street; the sponsors' lounge on the second floor includes some memorable views east and west along the sidewalk itself. At ground level, a café will be installed, which will also enhance the sense of connection.

But then there's the hall itself, a 2,000-seat horseshoe-shaped room that rises vertically five storeys. With its brown/beige colour scheme and lack of decoration, it looks strangely unfinished, almost naked. The energy here seems to have gone into the backstage facilities — the huge stages, flytower, lighting and the pit. This hall will be a treat for performers, if not visitors.

To be fair, the sightlines are uniformly good and although the quality of the acoustics remains to be seen — or rather, heard — no effort has been spared. The interior surfaces — hard, soft and stippled — curve, undulate and shift, all in an attempt to provide the complete acoustical experience. Whether or not all this work pays off only time will tell. The fact is, however, that acoustics are still something of a voodoo science; if they weren't, every hall would be sound perfect. Certainly, one hopes the listeners like what they hear at Four Seasons; it has little else to fall back on.

The irony in Toronto is that the best acoustics are still in Massey Hall, which sits dark most nights, and the most beautiful (new) hall is the Princess of Wales. The latter offers a lesson in how a theatrical building must itself be theatrical. The interiors — hall, lobbies and even washrooms — are thoroughly enticing and the back facades brought to life through an enormous mural painted by Frank Stella.

The final irony may be that the Four Seasons will never be the architectural equal of the building it replaces, the Hummingbird Centre. Even if the acoustics turn out to be superior, as a piece of pure architecture the Four Seasons will never be significant.

If the Four Seasons is important to Toronto it's because the city has made an opera house a condition of maturity, even of its own coming of age. That's all very well, but if we're going to invest so much meaning in a single structure, shouldn't we have built something that can bear the load of such expectations?

The Four Seasons, for all the good intentions, never rises to the occasion. That's not to say it fails, but neither can it be considered a success. To those for whom an opera house is simply a venue for musical theatre, it will be welcomed with open arms. To those for whom an opera house is a symbol of civic greatness, it will be a disappointment.

AoD
 
Yup, it's a fair assessment. A decent if not memorable building with some attractive features but ultimately an exercise in how cheaply an opera house can be built. Very Toronto.
 
g: maybe life around the opera house reflects art around the opera house?

42
 
Hume says that "... the Four Seasons will never be the architectural equal of the building it replaces, the Hummingbird Centre."

In fact, it replaces a parking lot. And before that an undistinguished government building stood on the site.

There are no plans to demolish the Hummingbird Centre as far as I know.
 
Plus, the Four Seasons has been built at a time when the AGO, the ROM, the Science Centre, the Gardiner, the RCM, the UofT, York, Ryerson, the Hospitals, even a group that wants to redo subway stations, heck, when everybody has been screaming for funds for big projects. What other city is taking on so much at once?

There has actually been an amazing outpouring of philanthropy in this city as of late towards many projects. Why Chris Hume can't see that the opera house is part of a much larger picture, I dunno.

42
 
Because he is absolutely *obsessed* with equating opera to pomp and circumstances surrounding 19th c. houses.

Now all we need are some self-appointed Habsburgs to complete the illusion of "civic grandeur".

AoD
 
Hume says it far better than I could.
He should get paid to write these things.
 
The acoustics, sightlines, and the sense of being involved in a collective theatrical experience will make or break this building.

One point Hume makes - that Massey Hall still offers the best sound - isn't lost on people who went there to hear the TSO before RTH was built.

When RTH was renovated a few years ago Massey was used again, to the joy of many listeners. And, despite RTH's fine renovations, there are still "dead spots" when you sit under the overhangs of the mezzanine and the balcony - places where the sound don't shine properly.

RTH is a pretty enough little button of a building from the outside. It is pleasant to sit on the terrace at intermission, gazing across the sunken pool towards King Street, hearing the honking taxis and the muffled sounds of the big city and watching pedestrians pass by. And promenading through the lobby, people-watching, has a certain fascination too. But it'll never be a great hall as far as acoustics are concerned, just a very good one.
 
Where's the pre-nup?
Canada's national ballet and opera companies are about to take up residence together but still have no agreement on such crucial issues as the rent
VAL ROSS

From Thursday's Globe and Mail

Can the Canadian Opera Company and the National Ballet of Canada learn to live together in harmony in their new Toronto home, the Four Seasons Centre for the Performing Arts?

Of course! There's too much at stake: There's the excitement around the new hall's outstanding acoustics; the claim that there's no bad seat in the 2,000-seat hall; and the sheer achievement of building a $150-million venue in the heart of Canada's largest city.

Still, based on the experience of the almost three decades it has taken to move two national companies from the 3,200-seat Hummingbird (formerly O'Keefe) Centre to a new home, the two companies' relationship will continue to be as fraught as you'd expect between a robust, dynamic, operatic sort of character, flushed with pride because it has been the new building's prime mover, and a cautious, delicate, balletic character, toeing its way onto someone else's territory.

News reports of disputes over the occupancy deal between the two companies and their landlord, the Opera House Corporation, surfaced two years ago; in March, 2006, amid more reports of disputes, the two companies predicted an imminent deal. Two and a half months later, just days before the Four Seasons's ribbon-cutting ceremony on Sunday, the agreement is still not signed.

Outstanding issues range from minor details such as signage (how will the ballet and opera companies' names appear on the building's exterior?) and wiring (will the wiring in the box office be compatible with each company's software?) to one biggie: How will rent be adjusted to inflation, which is being driven upward by rising energy costs?

This is more an issue for dancers, whose union agreement stipulates warm backstage, stage and corridor temperatures; the ballet's studios are typically about 24 C. "Negotiations have been very difficult and very complicated," admits David Banks, chair of the ballet board. "We settled on a lease price a year ago, but we've had to open that up again, as energy costs drive inflation upward."

One reason the opera is so bullish, the ballet so cautious, is that last year, the COC sold more than 90 per cent of available seats, and increased its box-office revenue by 17 per cent over the previous season. The National Ballet's 2004-05 saw a 4½-per-cent downturn in box office, and a big increase ($2.4-million) in expenditures (in part generated by the need to offer more performances to sell more seats, because the new hall is smaller). "The biggest risks for us are on the revenue side, that's the big uncertainty," admits Jim Pitblado, a major ballet philanthropist, and chairman from 1990-1997. "Will ticket buyers accept increased prices?"

Still, the reopening of presumed "done deals" strikes some parties as not quite sporting. "We always said the rent would be what they [the ballet] paid at the Hummingbird," says Canadian Opera Company director Richard Bradshaw. "Belatedly, in the last few months, they are now saying that a building with fewer seats means they have a problem. . . . If they're afraid of rising energy costs or declining ticket sales, that's their problem." He modifies that, more diplomatically, to a still exasperated-sounding: "I think the ballet should be with us. I want them here. If the ballet would prefer, because they have concerns, to sign a two-year contract, that's fine too. Just sign!"

Yet when the dream of a new joint home was born, in the 1980s, it was the ballet company, buoyed by strong ticket sales, an aura of glamour and the steady cash cow of its annual Nutcracker, that appeared to dominate what was known as the "ballet opera house corporation" (the entity behind the ambitious Moshe Safdie scheme, which died after costs soared to $300-million, and the Bob Rae government pulled provincial support).

Throughout the mid-1990s, the ballet turned to other priorities, says Pitblado. "We had appalling administrative and rehearsal spaces. Our preoccupation became getting a new home [as opposed to performance space]. Besides, under artistic directors Reid Anderson and then James Kudelka, the ballet was investing significant amounts of money in new repertoire."

For its part, the opera company was focusing on real estate. By 2001 it was negotiating with the Ontario government for downtown-Toronto, government-owned land, and with Ottawa for $25-million to get the cranes moving. But when the opera asked the ballet to join in the effort, Kudelka (and major ballet patrons such as Walter Carsen), proved oddly nostalgic about the Hummingbird, the ballet company's home for more than four decades, and declined to participate as a full partner. Instead, it eventually agreed to be an "occupant" of the new facility (whereas tenants can demand concessions from landlords, occupants can't). "It's a shame we didn't join then," says Kevin Garland, then head of the Opera House Corp., now executive director of the National Ballet. "Now we're not in as strong a position as if we were equal partners."

Adding to the inequality is the fact that the opera company has almost single-handedly raised $95-million from the private sector for its new home.

"We'd always hoped that the ballet would encourage their donors to be generous, "says Bradshaw. "That hasn't happened."

Scheduling is another source of friction. Nobody wanted to sell tickets when patrons are at the cottage, but the opera has agreed to start programming early in September if the ballet agrees to take late June. "We're both a little grumpy about where we ended up," says Garland.

Another problem: The ballet asked for the Four Seasons's proscenium stage to be widened to accommodate its existing choreography and sets. After acousticians warned that this could affect the hall's sound, the opera limited the adjustments, not enough to save The Nutcracker's giant Christmas tree from a trim.

But all these knots don't mean the two companies' relationship will unravel. People are too enthusiastic about their new home.

"I told [architect] Jack Diamond, this hall is just spectacular!" declares Pitblado. "I've stood on that stage and I wouldn't trade it for the Royal Opera House in London."
 
None more ridiculous than opera itself!

They are putting up the Four Seasons Centre sign on the south east corner. Looks like the same typeface as the Four Seasons logo.
 
Well, of course Hume would give a negative review. He only gives positve reviews to those who buy lots and lots of ads in the Star's real estate section.
 
I couldn't disagree more with Hume. The fact that this city achieved a 'jewel' of an opera house, that is anticipated to be extraordinary in its functionality, while still achieving elegance, simplicity and urbanity, on a tight city lot, and all within budget no less says a lot of good things about this city!! We have an opera that is right for here: not timid but modest, not bland but simple, not a scene-stealer but a scene-maker! I suspect that people will come to love it for the very fact that it does reflect Toronto, not in a negative way but in a good way. At the end of the day fashions may come and go but you can always rely on that little black dress, and to me that's what the Four Seasons is.
 
ap: I wasn't aware that the Four Seasons Centre was a Condo or a New Home.
 
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