OperaOggiNY to re-open McCaddin Memorial Hall Theater on Berry Street
OperaOggiNY, a production company is going to be reopening a theater on Berry Street between South 2nd and 3rd streets! We're looking forward to trying on our monocle and top hat on opening night.
A 600 seat, "theater" complete with 50 foot proscenium arch raked stage and a balcony, plenty of fly space with classic brick and wood and plaster construction has been found and is about to be opened to the public by a collaboration between OperaOggiNY and the St. Peter and Paul parish.
Rehearsals, started this week, are already bringing serious opera back to the theater. With Music Director, Bill Lewis, (coach to none other than the Met's Marcello Giordani and accompanist to all of Ronan Tynan's appearances) as part of the mix, these two very serious performers are preparing L'Oracolo, by Leone. Although presented within the last 2 years in a concert version in Manhattan, this is the first time that the work has been staged in an extremely long time. This one act verismo opera. composed by Leoni, who was a student with Puccini and part of Ponchielli's studio, will not disappoint. Set in San Francisco's China Town, cerca 1900, it was all the rage at the Met while Antonio Scotti was a star.
Performances Nov. 6, 7, 8. (all at 8pm)
Henry McCaddin Hall 288 Berry Street, Williamsburg
Admission: $20 dollars.
More information at www.operaogginy.com
posted by mike at
6:43 AM
1 Comments:
Hello, I have read several comments about this post that are incredulous about its validity. So I will try to end any doubts about the existence of an opera house in Williamsburg.
I went to Saint Peter and Paul school in the 1980s and yes, the building it occupies was an opera house in the 1890s. It was built as an upscale community center, with a library, swimming pool, bowling ally (a sport for the rich back then) , and the main part of the building was an opera house.
Stories have it that Enrico Caruso
sang there on its opening day.
Eventually as the wealthy moved away, and immigrant groups moved in the local parish took full control of the building giving it a new use as a catholic school.
The first floor public rooms were turned into classrooms, the old ticket booth became a storage room
and the managers office became the principals office. The basement (where the pool and alley were ) became the kitchen and lunch room.
On each of the upper floors behind the 'opera hall' space, there were large dressing rooms, which were divided up into two classrooms on each of those two floors.
The top floor is a huge attic space which is on top of the roof of the 'opera hall' space.
I sat in that balcony in the picture many may times in my 8 years there. The seats closest to the stage were removed , turning the area into a gym for students. The huge, old, but still beautiful space would be used as a theater once a year for the school plays we students would have to put on to raise cash.
I always found it ironic that a building that once housed a library for the rich , became a school that was so lacking in funds, that we had no 'school library' and our school text books (if we had any) were 30 years old. Not to mention the difficulties of going to school in a building that was falling down around us.
As I have hinted, my memories of my time in SP&P school are not happy ones but I do recall admiring the decaying beauty around me, many times in those 8 years.
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