The Lady is 125

   Cincinnati's Music Hall inspires many things: mystery, awe, love.
   Drive past her at night, especially near Halloween, and you can feel the mystery. She was built over a 19th-century potter's field and human remains have been unearthed over the years.
   Bats in her belfry? "Occasionally, but it's very rare," said Music Hall facility engineer Ed Vignale, Jr. But no rats. "We are rodent-free."
   Music Hall's hulking facade, with its conical spires and huge rose window, is arresting any time of day. It made a perfect backdrop for the over-sized banner of Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra music director Paavo Järvi, which hung over its stone steps last season (his first with the CSO).
   Järvi feels a kind of awe himself, he said. "It has a sense of grandeur and occasion. Every time I perform there I somehow feel the history of the place."
   That history will be celebrated with a 125th anniversary party May 7 at Music Hall. There'll be a food fest at 5 p.m. in the ballroom and a 7 p.m. concert in the Music Hall auditorium featuring the CSO Youth Orchestra, May Festival Youth Chorus and ensembles from the University of Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music, the School for Creative and Performing Arts and others. Host will be WCIN-AM's Courtis Fuller. The party kicks off a year of celebration entitled "Music Hall: Forever New."
   Music Hall is as old as the carved wooden panels from the old Music Hall organ in CSO president Steven Monder's office and as new as the elevator providing handicapped access in the north corridor.
   She has seen 81 May Festivals, countless Cincinnati Symphony and Pops concerts, a sleigh full of Cincinnati Ballet "Nutcrackers," graduation ceremonies, speeches and in 1880, the Democratic National Convention (Gen. Winfield Scott Hancock lost to James Garfield).
   There have been parties in the Music Hall ballroom, weddings in the foyer and basketball games, ice skating, wrestling matches, auto shows and horticultural exhibits in the north and south wings
   She is, "in a sense," said Pops conductor Erich Kunzel, "the history of Cincinnati."
   "It's been not only musical activity, but commercial, exhibition type of activity, way before convention halls were a part of the city landscape."
   Nobody knows Music Hall better than Vignale, who has kept watch over her since 1981. A custom tour of the building, what he calls his "insurance" tour, proceeds from the old Music Hall offices in the North Wing, now gutted to make way for Cincinnati Opera’s projected Corbett Opera Center, through the paint and carpentry shops down into the basement, where props like the giant birthday cake rolled onstage for the Pops' 75th birthday tribute to Dave Brubeck is stored. An ornate cello case belonging to former CSO cellist Liz Elsaesser stands in a corner, waiting to be recovered.
   Crossing the Music Hall stage, Vignale explains the counter weight suspension system used to raise and lower the CSO "ceiling" and sets used in Cincinnati Opera productions.
   The CSO's priceless music library (fifth oldest in the country) is protected by a halon gas fire suppression system backed up by sprinklers, he said. "You get this 300-pound rush of air through all these jets. Doors close, the ventilation system stops."
   Reaching the attic is a heady climb up a ladder. There, underneath the great eastern gable, you can see the rose window, the steel trusses that support the roof and the winch used to raise and lower Music Hall's 1,500-pound crystal chandelier.
   On the National Register of Historic Places, the red brick, "Victorian Gothic" structure, designed by architect Samuel Hannaford, has hosted a "who's who" of the world's great performers: Jascha Heifetz, Maria Callas, Luciano Pavarotti, Andres Segovia, Mikhail Baryshnikov, Duke Ellington, Benny Goodman, Count Basie, Miles Davis, Bob Dylan, The Who, Ella Fitzgerald and Frank Sinatra, among others.
   Bach's "Magnificat" received its U.S. premiere at the 1875 May Festival, Mahler's Symphony No. 5 by the CSO in 1905. Copland's "Fanfare for the Common Man," commissioned by the CSO, was premiered at Music Hall in 1943.
   Kunzel has made 91 Pops recordings at Music Hall (73 for Telarc) and taped five PBS television shows. A sixth, "Patriotic Broadway," airs June 2. Järvi's 2001 CSO inaugural concert will be telecast June 4 on PBS.
   With a sound decay time approaching 3 seconds, Music Hall's acoustics are renowned. "We have loved working in Music Hall since our first recording in 1978," said Robert Woods, Grammy-winning president of Telarc. "The hall is old and therefore splendidly organic. There is no concrete under the stage, just huge wooden beams, and thick, solid plaster walls. We could only wish we had such a wonderful place to work when we make our other recordings."
   "There are a lot of great orchestras that don't record in their own halls," said Monder. "We're very, very fortunate."
   Twelve CSO music directors have conducted at Music Hall, including Leopold Stokowski, Fritz Reiner, Max Rudolf, Thomas Schippers and Jesus Lopez-Cobos. Visitors to the Music Hall podium include Richard Strauss, Igor Stravinsky, Arthur Fiedler, Leonard Bernstein, Robert Shaw and John Philip Sousa.
   It all began with the Germans in Over-the-Rhine, said Kunzel. "A lot of hard-working Germans came to Cincinnati in the 19th century and settled in Over-the-Rhine. They were famous for their breweries, their beer halls and their singing. When conductor Theodore Thomas came to Cincinnati to start a May Festival, he noticed that the Germans, who loved to sing, were situated in Over-the-Rhine. So when he asked the city to build a hall for the May Festival, it was decided, hey, let's not build it downtown, let's build it where the singers are."
   "Music Hall is truly a jewel," said president Tom Besanceney of the Over-the-Rhine Chamber of Commerce. "We need to move down the road with improvements to Washington Park and the schools. We are very much committed to making these surrounding developments for Music Hall happen."
   Music Hall was built for the May Festival. The first May Festival, in 1873, was housed in a wood frame exposition hall (formerly Sängerhalle, built for the German song festivals). Situated at 14th and Elm Streets (the same spot as Music Hall), it was built over a potter's field used by The Commercial Hospital & Lunatic Asylum across the Miami Canal (now Central Parkway). At the second May Festival in 1875, a torrential rain beat on the tin roof of the building, halting the performance. Reuben Springer, a wealthy local businessman, pledged $125,000 toward the building of "a proper hall" for the festival, to be matched by the citizens of Cincinnati. Charles Aiken, superintendent of music in the Cincinnati public schools, led a kind of "children's crusade" in which students donated $3,000 in pennies toward the construction.
   The cornerstone was laid in 1877. The hall opened in 1878 with the third biennial May Festival led by Thomas. Two exhibition wings, Arts Hall (south) and Mechanics Hall (north), were added in 1879. Total cost of the construction was $446,000. The CSO, founded in 1894-95, first performed in Music Hall in 1897 in a concert led by founding music director Frank van der Stucken. In 1908, the CSO moved to Emery Auditorium, a smaller hall on Walnut Street in Over-the-Rhine custom built for Stokowski. The CSO returned to Music Hall in 1936.
   Music Hall has seen many changes over the years. With the advent of the CSO, accommodations had to be made for symphony concerts, including addition of a proper stage and proscenium arch. Electric lighting and permanent seating were also installed.
   The modern era began when Cincinnati Opera moved to Music Hall from the Cincinnati Zoo in 1972. Funded by the Corbett Foundation to the tune of $6 million, extensive renovation began in 1969. The hall was air conditioned and escalators, new seating, the chandeliers, a new organ and a parking garage with a skywalk over Central Parkway were added.
   Nicholas Muni "optimized Music Hall for opera" when he came opera artistic director in 1998. Refinements included covering the proscenium arch with a black frame, extending the Music Hall stage outward, installing up-to-date lighting and video monitors for SurCaps (English captions). "The grand design and scale of Music Hall make it a wonderful venue for the huge proportions of opera," said Muni. "We are truly fortunate to call this extraordinary building our home."
   It will be home more than ever when the opera moves to from its cramped quarters in Music Hall's south wing to its new space in the north wing. Renovation is expected to take ten months, pending finalization of a lease agreement with the Cincinnati Arts Association. The center will consolidate all of the opera's activities in one "building within a building," with its own ticket office, company headquarters and rehearsal and production areas.
   Patricia Corbett, who has maintained the Corbett Foundation's philanthropy since her husband J. Ralph Corbett’s death in 1988 ($9 million for Music Hall alone), has nothing but love for Music Hall. "Part of my heart resides there. I have spent some magical times (there). My hope is that generations to come will have those same opportunities."

Chronology.

• 1873 -- Theodore Thomas conducts the first May Festival in Exposition Hall (previously Sängerhalle) on the site of future Music Hall.

• 1878 -- Music Hall opens with the third biennial May Festival, Thomas conducting.

• 1897 -- Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra, founded in 1895, debuts at Music Hall.

• 1912 -- CSO under music director Leopold Stokowski moves to Emery Auditorium.

• 1936 -- CSO moves back to Music Hall.

• 1941 -- The city acquires title to Music Hall.

• 1943 -- World premiere of Copland's "Fanfare for the Common Man," commissioned by the CSO.

• 1954 -- WCET-TV debuts from Dexter Hall (now Corbett Tower).

• 1964 -- James Levine makes CSO conducting debut.

• 1967 -- Biennial May Festival becomes annual.

• 1970 -- Music Hall added to National Register of Historic Places.

• 1972 -- Cincinnati Opera moves from the Zoo to Music Hall.

• 1979 -- James Conlon makes his May Festival conducting debut.

• 1992 -- Music Hall Association merges with newly-formed Cincinnati Arts Association for joint management of Music Hall, Memorial Hall and new Aronoff Center for the Arts

• 2001 -- CSO music director Paavo Järvi leads his inaugural concert three days after 9/11