Foster + Partners Opera House Debuts in Dallas
A chandelier with 320 cascading acrylic light tubes is drawn up into the auditorium's ceiling at the beginning of each performance.
Nicholas Tamarin -- Interior Design, 10/22/2009 12:00:00 AM
Dallas may be famous for its oil barons, and a certain '80's prime-time sudser, but the city is redefining itself as a must-see destination on the international architecture map, thanks in no small part to Foster + Partners and the firm's new Margot and Bill Winspear Opera House.
Sir Norman Foster's latest project anchors the new AT&T Performing Arts Center, which also houses the just-built Wyly Theater by Rem Koolhaas and Joshua Prince-Ramus. The complex is located in the Dallas Arts District, itself home to buildings by I.M. Pei and Renzo Piano.
The Ferrari-red, drum-like auditorium, which Foster calls "the glowing heart" of the center, is surrounded by a solar canopy that shades a 60-foot-high lobby. Behind the lobby's fully-glazed screen, a series of public welcoming spaces surround the 2,200-seat, horseshoe-shaped house. A grand staircase flows from one side of the space to the other, while also linking all of the lobby spaces.
The shape of the auditorium's six vertically stacked seating levels ensures that more audience members will be closer to the stage. In fact, the distance between the stage and the balcony is only 85 feet—less than the distance between home plate and third base on a baseball field. 
The intimacy of the interior is further enhanced by the contrast of the white-gold finish of the balcony fronts against the otherwise red palette. Dangling above the new space is a chandelier with 320 cascading acrylic light tubes, which is drawn up into the ceiling at the beginning of each performance. The stage curtain is by Argentinean artist Guillermo Kuitca.
"This project is about the creation of a building that offers a truly democratic experience of opera for the 21st century," says Foster. "We wanted to create a sense of immediacy, from the moment you step into the external plaza to the opening of the curtain."
The opera house kicks off its premiere season on October 23 with The Dallas Opera's production of Giuseppe Verdi's Otello, featuring the American debut of German soprano Annette Dasch.
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