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Academy of Music (Philadelphia)
The Academy of Music, also known as American Academy of Music, is a concert hall and opera house located at 240 S. Broad Street in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Despite its name, the Academy has never contained a music school. It is located between Locust and Manning Streets in the Avenue of the Arts area of Center City.
The hall was built in 1855–57 and is the oldest opera house in the United States that is still used for its original purpose. Known as the "Grand Old Lady of Locust Street," the venue is the home of the Philadelphia Ballet and Opera Philadelphia. It was also home to the Philadelphia Orchestra from its inception in 1900 until 2001, when the orchestra moved to the new Kimmel Center for the Performing Arts. The Philadelphia Orchestra still retains ownership of the Academy, in partnership with Ensemble Arts.
The hall was designated a National Historic Landmark in 1962.
The Academy of Music held an inaugural ball on January 26, 1857. Following it, The New York Times described the theater as "magnificently gorgeous, brilliantly lighted, solidly constructed, finely located, beautifully ornamented" but went on to lament "all that lacks is a few singers to render it 'the thing'." The theatre had its first opera production, and what was billed as its formal opening, a month later on February 25, 1857, with a performance by the Max Maretzek Italian Opera Company of Verdi's Il trovatore starring Marietta Gazzaniga as Leonora, Alessandro Amodio as Count di Luna, Pasquale Brignoli as Manrico, and Max Maretzek conducting. Maretzek, who was already presenting operas at the Academy of Music in New York City and at the Chestnut Street Theatre in Philadelphia since 1850, brought his company back annually to the Academy of Music in Philadelphia through 1873. Due to his association with both the Philadelphia and New York City Academy of Music venues, his company was sometimes referred to as the Academy of Music Opera Company.
The Academy has been in continuous use since 1857, hosting many world-famous performers, conductors and composers, and a significant number of American premieres of works in the standard operatic and classical repertoire. Noted operas that had their American premieres there include Strauss's Ariadne auf Naxos, Gounod's Faust, and Wagner's The Flying Dutchman. In 1916, Leopold Stokowski conducted the Philadelphia Orchestra in the American premiere of Mahler's Eighth Symphony (the Symphony of a Thousand).
Outside of arts events, it hosted various public meetings, including the 1872 Republican National Convention.
An indoor football game took place here in 1889 between the University of Pennsylvania and a club from Princeton University, resulting in a 0-0 tie, appears to have been only the second football game ever played indoors at the time. During the Philadelphia Phillies 1895 baseball season, the Academy offered an electric play by play scoreboard for all of the team's road games.
The list of artists who have performed at the Academy of Music, from the 20th century, includes such figures as Marian Anderson, Maria Callas, Enrico Caruso, Aaron Copland, Vladimir Horowitz, Gustav Mahler, Anna Pavlova, Edith Piaf, Mario Lanza, Billie Holliday, Luciano Pavarotti, Tony Bennett (in 1962), Itzhak Perlman, Leontyne Price, Sergei Rachmaninoff, Artur Rubinstein, Isaac Stern, Richard Strauss, Igor Stravinsky, Joan Sutherland, and Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky, and others.
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Academy of Music (Philadelphia)
The Academy of Music, also known as American Academy of Music, is a concert hall and opera house located at 240 S. Broad Street in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Despite its name, the Academy has never contained a music school. It is located between Locust and Manning Streets in the Avenue of the Arts area of Center City.
The hall was built in 1855–57 and is the oldest opera house in the United States that is still used for its original purpose. Known as the "Grand Old Lady of Locust Street," the venue is the home of the Philadelphia Ballet and Opera Philadelphia. It was also home to the Philadelphia Orchestra from its inception in 1900 until 2001, when the orchestra moved to the new Kimmel Center for the Performing Arts. The Philadelphia Orchestra still retains ownership of the Academy, in partnership with Ensemble Arts.
The hall was designated a National Historic Landmark in 1962.
The Academy of Music held an inaugural ball on January 26, 1857. Following it, The New York Times described the theater as "magnificently gorgeous, brilliantly lighted, solidly constructed, finely located, beautifully ornamented" but went on to lament "all that lacks is a few singers to render it 'the thing'." The theatre had its first opera production, and what was billed as its formal opening, a month later on February 25, 1857, with a performance by the Max Maretzek Italian Opera Company of Verdi's Il trovatore starring Marietta Gazzaniga as Leonora, Alessandro Amodio as Count di Luna, Pasquale Brignoli as Manrico, and Max Maretzek conducting. Maretzek, who was already presenting operas at the Academy of Music in New York City and at the Chestnut Street Theatre in Philadelphia since 1850, brought his company back annually to the Academy of Music in Philadelphia through 1873. Due to his association with both the Philadelphia and New York City Academy of Music venues, his company was sometimes referred to as the Academy of Music Opera Company.
The Academy has been in continuous use since 1857, hosting many world-famous performers, conductors and composers, and a significant number of American premieres of works in the standard operatic and classical repertoire. Noted operas that had their American premieres there include Strauss's Ariadne auf Naxos, Gounod's Faust, and Wagner's The Flying Dutchman. In 1916, Leopold Stokowski conducted the Philadelphia Orchestra in the American premiere of Mahler's Eighth Symphony (the Symphony of a Thousand).
Outside of arts events, it hosted various public meetings, including the 1872 Republican National Convention.
An indoor football game took place here in 1889 between the University of Pennsylvania and a club from Princeton University, resulting in a 0-0 tie, appears to have been only the second football game ever played indoors at the time. During the Philadelphia Phillies 1895 baseball season, the Academy offered an electric play by play scoreboard for all of the team's road games.
The list of artists who have performed at the Academy of Music, from the 20th century, includes such figures as Marian Anderson, Maria Callas, Enrico Caruso, Aaron Copland, Vladimir Horowitz, Gustav Mahler, Anna Pavlova, Edith Piaf, Mario Lanza, Billie Holliday, Luciano Pavarotti, Tony Bennett (in 1962), Itzhak Perlman, Leontyne Price, Sergei Rachmaninoff, Artur Rubinstein, Isaac Stern, Richard Strauss, Igor Stravinsky, Joan Sutherland, and Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky, and others.