The Grand Opera House, Great Victoria Street, Belfast, County Antrim, BT2 7HR

The Grand Opera House, Great Victoria Street, Belfast

The Grand Opera House is an attached, multi-bay, four-storey Victorian proscenium theatre, built in 1894–95 to designs by Frank Matcham, the leading theatre architect of his day and designer of around 150 theatres throughout Britain. It stands on the west side of Great Victoria Street at its junction with Glengall Street in Belfast city centre, occupying the site of Ginnet's Circus, which had been open since 1882, and replacing William Harmiston's Equestrian Circus formerly on the same ground. The building is one of the most celebrated theatres in Northern Ireland and an important local and regional landmark.

The theatre consists of a rectangular auditorium with a flytower behind a mansard roof to the east end, abutted to Glengall Street and Great Victoria Street by supporting accommodation. Three-storey flat-roofed extensions abut the north and west elevations. The principal entrance, originally on the east elevation, has been rerouted through a later lobby extension to the north-east side. Roofs are finished in natural slate with leaded ridges over painted stone corbelled eaves. A corbelled brick chimney with a painted sandstone cornice sits to the south of the auditorium, alongside a later ventilation chimney at centre. To the east of the auditorium rises a notable octagonal cupola: ventilation louvres at the lower stage are surmounted by a copper roof; above this, a second stage is crowned by a copper domed roof with finial.

The walls are built in English garden wall bonded red brick over a smooth rendered plinth, with painted moulded sandstone string courses throughout. The east elevation has painted rendered walling up to door-head height. Windows are generally square-headed, timber-framed 2/2 sliding sashes set in brick reveals with decorative carved stone pediments, except where noted otherwise. Rainwater goods are cast-iron moulded gutters with round downpipes.

The principal elevation faces east and is abutted at first-floor level by a timber-framed glazed crush bar with a curvilinear roof, added around 1980. The exposed central section comprises three recessed bays. At ground-floor level each bay contains a square-headed opening with replacement double-leaf timber doors. At second-floor level, pairs of timber-framed windows contain leaded stained glass and are separated by painted stone pilasters. At third-floor level, roundel windows sit within painted stone architraves, each surmounted by a painted stone archivolt with keyblock. Above the central section, a painted frieze reading GRAND OPERA HOUSE is surmounted by a decorative triangular pediment with an ornate stucco tympanum reading CIRQUE. The central section is flanked by engaged square towers, each containing a painted stone relief panel surmounted by a square-headed ventilation opening with a cast-iron openwork grille set within a smooth surround and surmounted by a round-arched pediment at upper ground-floor level. Two narrow openings containing cast-iron ventilation grilles occupy the top stage of each tower, surmounted by a stone cornice, with onion domes flanking the pediment above — one of the building's most distinctive and characterful oriental-style features. To the left and right of the towers, a single bay at ground-floor level contains a segmental-arched recess with a bullnose reveal surmounted by a decorative hood-mould with keyblock. At first-floor level, a timber-framed casement window with leaded stained glass is surmounted by a projecting lintel and triangular pediment carried on console brackets; a relief panel above reads MUSIC to the left bay and DRAMA to the right. A partial balustrade terminates at a scrolled pedimented parapet rising to third-floor level.

The north-east elevation is three storeys in height. At ground-floor level, two segmental-arched openings contain replacement double-leaf timber panelled entrance doors surmounted by glazed fanlights. At first-floor level, pairs of timber-framed casement windows with leaded stained glass are surmounted by a stone panel containing a moulded arch with an ornate stucco tympanum reading ARTS. Above a moulded string course, pairs of windows at second-floor level (matching the general pattern elsewhere) sit within smooth architraves, separated by a console bracket and surmounted by a shouldered pediment. A balustrade runs along the parapet. Behind the slated second-floor roof, an exposed curved clerestory at third-floor level has rendered walling pierced by four keyed oculi with horizontal transoms containing metal-framed casement windows, each separated by ornate pilaster details.

The south-east elevation is three storeys, abutted by a two-storey block. A segmental-arched recessed panel at ground-floor level marks a former entrance. At first-floor level, a large timber-framed oculus window sits within a moulded architrave with a stylised keyblock, set within a smooth rendered surround and surmounted by a triangular pediment without a base, carried on console brackets with pedimented heads, with a bronze statue at the apex. A balustrade to the parapet conceals a slated second-floor roof; the clerestory detail repeats that of the north-east elevation.

The south elevation is three storeys, with the auditorium clerestory behind to the left and a gabled bay to the right. To the left, a double-height segmental-arched loading bay opening contains double-leaf timber panelled doors surmounted by a panelled spandrel, with a gabled dormer above containing an oculus in a keyed surround. The loading bay is flanked to the left by a single window at first and second floors, and to the right by five openings at each floor level. At ground-floor level the openings are surmounted by hood-moulds on corbels, with segmental-arched lights above; the central and right-hand openings are doorways containing timber panelled entrance doors. The clerestory to the left contains two oculus windows in smooth architraves (serving the flytower) and one at the right (serving the auditorium); signage reads OPERA HOUSE. The gabled bay to the right contains pairs of double-leaf timber panelled doors at ground-floor level, flanked by further double-leaf doors. At first-floor level to the left, two low-level semi-circular windows with smooth architraves sit alongside a pair of windows with a shared corbelled sill and shared ornate scrolled pediment, flanked to the left by a single window and to the right by a further single window surmounted by a projecting lintel and triangular pediment on console brackets; a relief panel above reads ARTS. Four windows occupy the second floor. A scrolled gable terminates in a partial balustraded parapet to left and right; the gable itself contains a pair of timber casement windows surmounted by a semi-circular window set in a triangular pediment on console brackets at the apex, flanked by cornice features on console brackets to left and right. The west and north elevations are both abutted by three-storey extensions.

The building stands on a tight city-centre site, accessed directly from the street on the east and south sides.

Internally, the auditorium retailing is largely intact and the remainder of the building retains a relatively well-preserved interior. The drama and opulence of the auditorium has survived the building's many changes, and its highly ornate character remains. The painted ceiling of the auditorium was re-created during the 1980 restoration by Cherith McKinstry, working from printed descriptions, personal memories, and her own creative interpretation.

The theatre's history is long and eventful. Plans were submitted to Belfast Corporation in November 1894 and the building was completed within a year at a stated cost of £12,000, rising to a total of £18,688 including all fittings according to the Belfast Revaluation of 1900, at which point the building was valued at £870 and said to seat 2,500 people. It first appears in valuation records in 1895 as a Grand Theatre Opera House and Cirque, the property of J F Warden, valued at £580. Warden had previously managed the Theatre Royal in Arthur Square, having been appointed its Temporary Manager in 1863; he had rebuilt the Theatre Royal in 1871 and again in 1881 after it was destroyed by fire, and had built a new Opera House for Derry in 1877. It was Warden who approached Matcham to design the Belfast building. The theatre was formally declared open on 16 December 1895, a week before the opening performance — a pantomime called Blue Beard. At the opening, Warden described Matcham as "the king of architects... the hero and father of forty theatres" and declared Belfast's new opera house his favourite work. The Belfast Newsletter called it "one of the prettiest buildings of the kind in existence... a most handsome addition to the public buildings of this city... it reminds one of a sumptuous Oriental palace," and described being dazzled by the "most brilliant and charming Eastern effect" of the interior decoration. Matcham brought considerable innovation to the design, providing generous exits, complex fireproofing, effective ventilation, and carefully considered sightlines, all while fitting the maximum number of paying seats into an elaborate building on a small but well-chosen site. The theatre was designed to accommodate opera, variety, pantomime, and circus, and could be adapted for each type of entertainment. By 1898 a Summer Circus Season was possible through a system allowing the stage to be lowered to create a circus ring.

J F Warden died early in 1898 and the theatre passed to his son Fred W Warden, though the son's management proved less successful. Between 1900 and 1904 the theatre presented distinguished names in drama including Mrs Patrick Campbell, Lily Langtry, Henry Irving, and Ellen Terry, and the D'Oyly Carte Opera Company and the Royal Carl Rosa Opera Company — the latter giving an early performance of Puccini's La Bohème before the opera had been seen in London. In 1904, however, serious drama was transferred to the Theatre Royal and the Grand Opera House was renamed the Palace of Varieties, running a twice-nightly variety programme. This experiment was not financially successful, and in 1909 the theatre reverted to its earlier name — now the Royal Opera House — and to its former mixed programme. Towards the end of the decade, drama from an Irish and Ulster tradition grew in prominence, with performances by the Abbey Theatre and the Ulster Literary Theatre, the latter maintaining its relationship with the theatre until 1934. The 1920s and 1930s saw popular musical shows such as The Student Prince and The Desert Song alongside continued Shakespearean productions and the works of George Bernard Shaw. Gracie Fields drew huge audiences in September 1933. After Fred Warden's death, Edward Buckley took over as Managing Director. Improvements to the building were carried out by James St John Phillips in 1930. After an accidental fire in 1934 the stage was replaced within two months under the supervision of architects Messrs Stevenson and Son, with work carried out by H and J Martin as contractors.

In 1940, wartime restrictions on the travel of theatre companies led the Opera House to form its own repertory company — the only time it did so for any significant period. In 1944 the US Army presented This is the Army to packed houses, with Irving Berlin making a personal appearance. In 1949 a controlling interest was bought by George Lodge, general manager of the Imperial and Cinematograph Theatres. The architect Henry Lynch Robinson remodelled the dress circle bar, removing the naked putti that had held the drapes, and the entrances to the circle and stalls were combined. Short film seasons began in 1949, culminating in a programme starring Orson Welles as Falstaff. In 1960 the theatre was bought by Rank Odeon, who installed new seating and created a new main entrance hall on Great Victoria Street through what had been the pit bar. A mixed programme of live shows and films continued, with opera prominent in the early 1960s, but changing tastes and civil unrest combined to make continued profitable operation impossible, and the theatre closed in 1972 and the site was sold to property developers.

At the commencement of statutory listing in 1974, the Grand Opera House was among the first buildings to be listed. It was bought by the Arts Council in 1976 and subsequently restored under the architect Robert McKinstry, with H and J Martin — the original contractors from 1895 — carrying out the building work. The original decoration of the auditorium was restored; the roof of the stage was raised by twenty feet and its floor lowered by two feet to meet the technical requirements of a modern theatre. McKinstry's most visible external addition was the conservatory-style crush bar added to the front of the building, modelled on Matcham's Theatre Royal at Portsmouth. The theatre reopened with a gala night in September 1980, its first production being Brian Friel's Translations starring Liam Neeson. Its reopening was widely seen as a gesture of hope during a difficult period in the city's history, and it helped to rejuvenate surrounding pubs and restaurants. The theatre subsequently suffered severe damage from bombs in 1991 and 1993: the first closed the building for nine months, and the second — which tore the side out of the building — for seven months. More recent works have created a new contemporary entrance lobby, bar, and backstage area, shifting the main entrance slightly to the north-east. The original glass and iron canopy that had sheltered the entrances on Glengall Street and the corner with Great Victoria Street was removed at some earlier point in the building's history. The building lies within a conservation area.