One custom-built opera house, two resident companies
Toronto's Performing Arts
Canada's first purpose-built opera house opened in 2006 after a 23-year campaign — home to both the Canadian Opera Company and the National Ballet of Canada, alongside a symphony orchestra founded in 1922.
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Toronto's classical performing arts scene runs on three major institutions, two of which now share a single custom-built home that took over two decades to actually get built.
Toronto Symphony Orchestra (founded 1922)
Founded in 1922 as the New Symphony Orchestra, the TSO gave its first concert at Massey Hall in April 1923 under conductor Luigi von Kunits, with 58 musicians. It performed regularly at Massey Hall for six decades before moving to its current home, Roy Thomson Hall, when that distinctive glass-walled venue opened in 1982 — now hosting more than 400,000 patrons a year.
A 23-year campaign for an opera house
The Canadian Opera Company — the largest opera company in Canada — spent decades without a purpose-built home, performing instead at the acoustically mismatched O'Keefe Centre. A campaign for a real opera house, launched in 1983 under COC director Lotfi Mansouri, survived a collapsed $320-million provincial funding plan in 1990 and was finally carried to completion under director Richard Bradshaw.
The Four Seasons Centre (2006)
Canada's first custom-built opera house opened June 14, 2006, designed by Toronto firm Diamond Schmitt Architects, with its main R. Fraser Elliott Hall modeled loosely on Munich's Nationaltheater. It's the shared permanent home of both the Canadian Opera Company and the National Ballet of Canada, founded in 1951 under first artistic director Celia Franca — putting two of the country's major performing arts institutions under one roof for the first time.
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Sources
- The Canadian Encyclopedia — Four Seasons Centre for the Performing Arts
- Wikipedia — Toronto Symphony Orchestra
- Wikipedia — National Ballet of Canada