After two years of construction, painstaking preparations and steadily building anticipation, the $92 million Ellie Caulkins Opera House opened Saturday evening with a spectacular gala concert presented by Opera Colorado.
The theater in the Denver Performing Arts Complex has been touted by the architects and others involved in the project as one of the best in the world. So, the immediate question, of course, was: How good is the sound?
And, to everyone’s relief, the answer is: excellent. The opera house passed its first major test with flying colors.
Any immediate doubts were erased when tingles ran up and down the spine as celebrated soprano Renée Fleming glided effortlessly into a soaring version of the aria, “Ebben? No andro lontana,” toward the end of the first half.
Rather than serving as an impediment like previous theaters where Opera Colorado has performed, this building embraces and supports the sound, from the booming basement notes of bass-baritone Hao Jiang Tian to Fleming’s floating high notes.
The one architectural glitch that did become immediately apparent was the potential for distracting sounds to emanate into the house from the Chambers Grant Salon.
Two stairs go directly from inside the house to the lower-level space, and because there are no intervening doors, unwanted sounds of workers pouring ice and sliding things across the floor could be heard during the first half of the concert.
This completely new opera house was built within the historic shell of the former Auditorium Theatre, now known as the Newton Auditorium. The building looks the same on the outside, except for some much-needed refurbishment of the facade, but, inside, everything is different.
The handsome theater takes its cues from the venerable European opera houses, with its traditional lyre shape, red seats and cherry-wood finishes.
And even though it has 2,268 seats, it possesses a surprising intimacy, in part because no seat is farther than 113 feet from the stage.
Before any conclusive assessment can be made of the acoustics, of course, it will be necesssary to sit in different parts of the house, experience a complete opera production and see how well it functions for its second important use as a dance theater.
For Saturday’s sold-out program, Opera Colorado gathered an amazing spectrum of talent from its own chorus to 16 singers, including international stars, local favorites and up-and-comers. And to showcase them all, it put together a long – in fact, overly long – program of arias and ensembles running more than three hours.
A highlight was the world premiere of Jake Heggie’s “At the Statue of Venus,” a clever if perhaps lightweight musical scene of a woman waiting to meet a blind date. Emerging soprano Kristin Clayton handled it beautifully, with her pleasing, unaffected voice and natural acting.
But the evening’s apex was undoubtedly the concluding scene from Act 1 of “Otello” with Fleming and tenor Ben Heppner, who demonstrated beyond any doubt why they are revered as two of the world’s greatest opera singers.
