Theatre Design & Technology - Summer 1981 - 7

The Metropolitan Opera, New York; La Scala, Milan; The
Bavarian State Opera, Munich; Teatro Colon, Buenos Aires;
Staatsoper, Vienna, the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden-which is the greatest of the great opera houses of the
world in 1981? The question is probably unanswerable because none of these companies has a monopoly on the great
variety of highly skilled artists and craftsmen required to stage
and perform grand opera. That London's Royal Opera House,
Covent Garden is among the leaders goes without saying, for
its history is a long and honorable one. Although the house
cannot match La Scala in age or in the number of premieres of
great works from the operatic repertoire, it has had its fair
share including Von Weber's Oberon in 1826 when the composer conducted the first performance. Since that noteworthy
event, the house has served theatre, ballet and opera equally
for some years and the latter two performing arts exclusively
since 1858 when the present theatre was built. The new
house was designed by architect Edward Barry for Frederick
Gye, the Impresario and others with a financial interest in the
theatre and site.' Gye had taken on the management of the
house in 1850 and was to hold it until the 1870's. During his
term, he established Covent Garden as the primary home for
opera in London, a position which it still enjoys.
Producing seasons of grand opera has been, and still is,
the most complex of all the many forms of theatrical production. First of all, grand opera is very expensive. The casts, including all the choristers, number in the hundreds. All of them
must be costumed one or more times for any performance and
when one adds in four or five full settings, a large orchestra, a
corps de ballet, an army of carpenters, flymen, electricians,
property people, and wardrobe/wig supervisors, the budgets
are huge.
After Gye's death, Covent Garden saw a succession of
managements and syndicates all dedicated to seasons of opera and ultimately, after World War II, seasons of opera and
ballet sharing the house from late September through July of
the following year.
At the present time, opera and ballet production at the
Royal Opera House is controlled by Royal Opera House Covent Garden Ltd. This organization serves as a financial and
managerial umbrella for the Royal Opera and the Royal Ballet
plus the Sadler's Wells Royal Ballet. The latter company
spends much of its time on tours in Britain but does present a
month's season, usually in May, when the Royal Opera and
Royal Ballet are, themselves, on tour.
The technical and production staffs at the Royal Opera
House are responsible for the staging and production needs
of all three companies, both in the parent house and on tour.
Therefore, the tasks facing them are very different from those
facing the technical staff at New York's Metropolitan Opera
House who are concerned only with staging operatic productions, an occasional gala, and the Met's annual tour.
As with any well-run performance company, good organization is the key to successful operation. Tom MacArthur, the
Technical Director, is responsible for the smooth functioning
of the Opera House itself, as well as the many other shops,
storage areas, and rehearsal spaces used by the three performing entities. He admits that his job often requires him to
walk a very sharp line in order to keep his principal tenants,
the Royal Opera and the Royal Ballet, happy. A look at an average week will show the reason why. Good Friday week,
1981, contained three opera evenings, one ballet matinee,
and two ballet evenings. The house was closed on April 17th,
Good Friday. The three operas were all different; Macbeth
(Verdi), The Elixir of Love, and Lohengrin. The Ballet evening
on Monday, April 13, consisted of four works while the matinee and evening performances on Saturday, April 18, both
featured a single work, Swan Lake. These two performances,
however, were conducted by two different conductors and
danced by different principals at each performance. Providing
USITI /Summer, 1981

set-up and rehearsal time for each company, seeing that his
crews have the time onstage needed to properly maintain and
operate their equipment, scheduling the construction and
painting of new settings, properties and costumes; all tend to
make his life a matter of very careful planning, organization,
and occasional instant decision making.

Facilities and Equipment
The 123 year-old Opera House was never designed for the
type of production activity it currently houses. Major renovations were made to the stage in the years 1899-1902 under
the direction of Edwin O. Sachs. Other alterations have been
carried out in the house and on the stage. With the advent of
electric lighting throughout the house in 1892 the large central chandelier was removed, much improving sightlines from
the amphitheatre and upper side slips. Otherwise, the theatre
is still very similar to the one architect Barry designed in
1856-7.
The changes to the backstage areas at the turn of the century were highly beneficial:
The stage was almost completely gutted, its cellar deepened and its
roof raised some 20 feet. A new gridiron and grid galleries were
erected, and a Brandt counterweight system for flying scenery was
installed. The original raked floor was replaced by a flat one, 80
feet wide and 40 feet deep. This was divided into six sections arranged parallel with the curtain line, all equipped with 40 feet wide
movable bridges except the front section, which was fitted with a
series of traps GFig. 1). Electrically controlled, these bridges [elevators or lifts] can be raised or lowered from the normal stage level,
the front two six feet above or eight feet below, and the back three
nine feet above or eight feet below. Between the bridges are drop
flaps [at the down stage edges of each lift] for ground rows and rising scenes, and at the sides are wing ladders . ... The proscenium
was fitted with a fireproof curtain, and by removing the elfipticallycurved apron the orchestra pit was considerably enlarged. The
scene docks flanking the stage were remodelled, and a large new
property store was built above the Floral Street wing. 2

The lifts are still functioning as well as they did when first installed in 1902. They are driven by large DC motors operating
on 110 volts DC. The motors were developed in the last years
of the nineteenth century for use in Submariner and will function, albeit sluggishly, while entirely submerged under water.
The 110 volt direct current is produced by large bubble rectifiers. An old electrical text book describes the bubble rectifier
as follows:
A [large glass] vessel from which all air has been excluded has a
small quantity of metallic mercury in it. This is called the cathode or
negative electrode; another, called the anode or positive electrode,
is so placed that normally it does not touch the mercury. To start
the rectifier, the vessel is tilted so that the mercury momentarily
touches the anode, thus causing a spark, which vaporizes a small
portion of the mercury. This vapor is highly conductive, and a
stream of electricity continues to flow through the vapor and form a
luminous arc. The action depends on the fact that the arc between
the pool of mercury and the anode allows current to pass in one direction only, so that taking our sine wave of A.G. we find that only
the top half of the wave is used which is a unidirectional current.
This is not good in practice as it consists .. of a series of impulses. This is overcome by using a polyphase A.G. supply with as
many electrodes (anodes) [in the rectifier vessel] as there are
phases. 3

A bubble rectifier in action looks like a device dreamed up
for an early science fiction film. The large glass vessel about
four feet in height is semicircular at the top and tapers toward
its lower end. The pool of mercury at the bottom is surrounded
by three of four horizontal glass arms which protrude from the
tapering base. These are the anode chambers. In operation,
the vessel is filled with a bluish-purple electrical discharge
with a dancing spot of intense light skittering about on the surface of the pool of mercury. It is an old-fashioned way to recTheatre Design & Technology

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