Corbett Opera Center Opens

As she did in Cincinnati Opera’s old home in the south wing of Music Hall, soprano Marta Wittkowska will greet visitors to the Corbett Opera Center, the opera’s new $4 million headquarters in the north wing of the 127-year-old landmark.
   Wittkowska, whose portrait (as Carmen) hangs opposite the elevator on the second floor of the COC, sang at the Cincinnati Zoo from 1926-31.
   Like much in the new facility, which is being dedicated today in ceremonies attended by Mayor Charlie Luken, she will recall the tradition that adheres to the nation’s second oldest opera company (founded in 1920).
   So will the exposed beams, duct work and brick walls, which vie for attention with brand new computer work stations (donated by Ashland, Inc.), brightly painted surfaces and contemporary furnishings.
   "From an aesthetic point of view, it reflects who we are," said opera general manager Patricia Beggs. "We are innovative and forward-thinking. At the same time, we respect tradition." Leaving some surfaces unfinished was also an economy move, and saved the opera "enormous expense," she said.
   Designed by FRCH Design Worldwide, the four-story, 14,000 square-foot COC is a marvel of planning and execution, a building-within-a-building painstakingly brought to life by Frank Messer and Sons Construction.
   "We’re in the space by an eighth of an inch," said opera public relations director Julie Maslov. "The beams that support the floor and the structure all had to be manually brought in through the window spaces (which are newly opened, having been bricked over for years). They were swung in on cranes and put into place manually by the crew."
   There were only two floors when the opera went in. Music Hall offices were on the ground floor. Above that was attic space. Most of it served as storage for tenants of Music Hall (a huge drum used in the ballet’s "Nutcracker" still stands in the 5,000 square-foot space behind the Corbett Center, to be renovated in phase two of the project).
   Originally known as "Machinery Hall," the north wing of Music Hall has housed industrial exhibitions, a sports arena and the Cincinnati Tennis Club (the first indoor tennis court west of the Alleghenies, said Beggs). Holes in the exposed brick on the COC’s fourth-floor "Presidents’ Garret" show where supports for the bleachers used for wrestling and boxing matches used to be.
   Mayor Luken will christen the center by breaking a bottle of champagne against those bricks in ceremonies at 5:30 p.m. for major donors and community leaders.
   Cincinnati Opera moved to Music Hall from the Zoo in 1972 and has shared space in the south wing with the Cincinnati Symphony, May Festival and until they moved to their own new facility at 1555 Central Parkway, Cincinnati Ballet.
   Overcrowding was serious.
   "Many times you would walk down the hallway and somebody would be putting together packets on the floor because there was no space to do it," Maslov said.
   The center will really start to hum when the 2005 season gets underway and the opera expands from a staff of 25 to over 200 employees, said Beggs. The opera plans a public open house at the COC during the summer festival, which opens June 16 at Music Hall with Puccini’s "La Boheme."
   A portrait of J. Ralph and Patricia Corbett -- whose gifts to Music Hall have exceeded $9 million, not counting gifts to Cincinnati Opera, which total $4 million to date -- will hang on the ground floor.
   It was the Corbett Foundation’s lead gift of $1.5 million in 2000 that got the COC off the ground. In kind donations to the project have exceeded $300,000, including $100,000 in services by FRCH.
   The Corbetts were always there for Cincinnati Opera, said Beggs. "In the late 60s, they helped upgrade the level of productions at the Zoo. When we needed to find a new home, they enabled us to move into Music Hall, and now when we were looking for adequate space, they enabled us to stay in Music Hall and continue to be, along with the symphony, the major employers in Over-the-Rhine."
   Said opera president Harry Fath, co-chair with Larry Sheakley of the Festival Campaign, the opera’s blended endowment/capital campaign which made the COC possible:
   "Their name deserves to be all over anything in the arts, particularly the performing arts, because they stepped up to the plate in a big time way a long time ago."
(first published in The Cincinnati Post Jan. 13, 2005)