Covent Garden (Royal Opera House), London

Covent Garden (Royal Opera House)

E. M. Barry

1858; restored 1999

Covent Garden, London

[See commentary below]

Photograph, caption, and commentary by Jacqueline Banerjee

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Related material

Flaxman's Melpomene on the façade

The Floral Hall

Covent Garden Market

St Paul's, Covent Garden

E. M. Barry's theatre was the third to be built on this spot. The first, designed by Edward Shepherd and opened in 1732, was "the most luxurious ever built in London" at that time (Weinreb and Hibbert 209). After an illustrious history (for instance, both Goldsmith's She Stoops to Conquer and Sheridan's The Rivals were first performed here), this burnt down in 1808. The next Covent Garden theatre house was designed by Robert Smirke. This opened in 1809, had a spell of financial problems from the end of the 1820s onwards, and reopened in the late 1840s as the Royal Italian Opera. The English premières of Verdi's Rigoletto and It Trovatore took place here in 1853 and 1855 respectively.

In 1856, Smirke's building too burnt down; only Flaxman's Coade Stone frieze for it could be salvaged — a testimony, perhaps, to the medium's exceptional strength. This has been inserted along the façde behind the portico. E. M. Barry's new building of 1858 would also score some notable firsts, including the first performances in England of Wagner's Lohengrin (1875) and Verdi's Aida (1876). With its expanding repertoire, it was renamed the Royal Opera House in 1892, the very year in which Mahler's The Ring was first performed there, with Mahler himself conducting, on his one visit to England (see "Gustav Mahler"). Barry's building is still the core of the present Royal Opera House, which was massively restored and extended, and reopened in 1999. Next to it is the glass and iron Floral Hall, also designed by Barry, this time for the theatre's management. Opened in 1860, it had to be restored after a fire in 1956, but is still very much in keeping with (and perhaps outshines) the other glass and iron structures in Covent Garden Market.

Bibliography

"The History of the Royal Opera House." Royal Ballet and Opera (this has a very useful chronology). Web. 23 March 2025. https://rohcollections.org.uk/rohhistory.aspx

"Gustav Mahler." Classical.de." Web. 23 March 2025. https://www.classicals.de/mahler

Richardson, John. Covent Garden. New Barnet, Herts: Historical Publications, 1979.

Weinreb, Ben and Christopher Hibbert, eds. The London Encyclopaedia. London: Macmillan, rev. ed. 1992.

Created 15 January 2008

Bibliography updated 23 March 2025