Rx for Music Hall
Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra violinist Stacey Woolley, matchless wit, strolling violinist at CSO intermissions and raconteur par excellence, offered a prescription for Cincinnati's over-sized Music Hall during the orchestra's tour of Southern California in April, 2007.
But first some background.
About Music Hall:
Music Hall was built to house Cincinnati's biennial May Festival, a civic event that remains the oldest continuing choral festival in the Northern Hemisphere. The stage was intended to hold 1,500 performers, the hall 7,000 people &ldquocomfortably." The CSO, founded in 1895, performed there until music director Leopold Stokowski persuaded local backers to construct a better-fitting home. Completed in 1912, Emery Auditorium (now abandoned and considered impractical to restore) seated 2,500 and met the orchestra's needs quite successfully.
In 1939, fears that Music Hall would go the way of the wrecking ball persuaded the orchestra to move back and become its anchor tenant, assuring it of continued use and survival.
With 3,516 seats (official count), Music Hall is the largest concert hall in the U.S. It lacks intimacy and is rarely more than half or two-thirds full for orchestra concerts. Cincinnati Opera, the May Festival and Cincinnati Ballet also perform there, but even with far fewer performances to sell, rarely fill it themselves. While grand and lovely to look at, Music Hall does not draw listeners into performances of any kind.
The consensus among the hall tenants is to "shrink," re-configure, downsize or otherwise make Music Hall adaptable for all its uses. Acoustically, it is a superior instrument. The engineers at Telarc International love to record there and a primary concern is to preserve its acoustical qualities.
Here, in Woolley's own words, are his observations and recommendations:
I. If the hall seats too many people for the CSO to generate pressure to buy early or subscribe, seating capacity needs to be reduced. Reduced seating would also make a respectable house of 2,000+ persons seem closer to a sell-out, which would doubtless increase their sense that they are a part of a "going concern" (rather than one that is moribund), which in turn would make everyone in attendance more comfortable. On the other hand, the other arts organizations that sell seats in Music Hall the Pops (Cincinnati Pops Orchestra), Opera and May Festival would lose palpably sellable seats if capacity is reduced by too great a number. I believe reducing from 3,400 to 2,800 seats would be tolerable for all on the high end: enough seats to sell to generate revenue but not too many "empties" to make 2,000 people feel isolated.
How to achieve reduction to 2,800?
- Remove all current seats. Install large seats in rows that allow for more leg room [seats are too close together at present, creating severe problems for some patrons].
- Do not install any seats behind pillars or underneath the balcony on the main floor in the rear.
- Do not install any seats along boxes or under the majority of the balcony-covered sides of the main floor, creating front-to-rear aisles on the sides of the main floor in addition to the center aisle.
- Do not install permanent seats where the first six or so rows are on the main floor. This would allow for:
When raised to stage level, the new third pit would allow the CSO to thrust forward into the house. With the rear of the orchestra even with the proscenium arch, the winds, brass and percussion would no larger receive amplification from being inside a "giant megaphone" with a lower ceiling. Furthermore, with the entire orchestra "in the same room," all musicians might hear each other better. Acousticians would have to address: a) whether the "clouds" stay, go or need to be enlarged or reduced and b) whether the current shell is usable as a rear wall.
[Question: Would another 120-rank pipe organ (the old one was the largest in the U.S.) serve as an acceptable shell? How would such an instrument be aesthetically, both musically and visually? Answer: Sweet!]
With the CSO thrust forward, musicians may find they can play softer, creating a more refined sound and extending careers to boot. Seating along the sides would suddenly be far more attractive in every way, and the entire concert experience would be far more intimate.
Three adjustable pits could mean three "built-in risers" to experiment with.
Three pits would mean greater capacity in the pit for opera productions. If the rear-most pit were not needed, staging could be brought forward.
II. Any tenant desiring greater seating capacity could return to the current placement of the CSO onstage or in the pit by lowering the front-most pit to the audience level and bringing in portable seats to place upon it, as well as wheelchairs.
In the case of Pops concerts, tables could be placed both on the new, semi-lowered pit and along the rear (and sides?) of the main floor, along with portable chairs, for patrons to enjoy food and beverages during concerts.
III. My final observation is that the new seats need to be constructed from materials that enhance the hall's acoustics. Current materials lean toward absorbing sound. Again, acousticians will have to decide if greater sound reflection is good, bad or indifferent, but my own preference is for wood and leather. According to (concert hall historian/CSO violist) Bob Howes, the original upholstery for halls 100 years ago was often "leatherette" something like leather. I believe our patrons would find leather-covered plush seating very attractive.