By Robert D. Thomas
Music Critic
Pasadena Star-News/San Gabriel Valley Tribune/Whittier Daily News
It’s the latest building in the city’s “Place des Arts” complex.
The Montreal Symphony (or L’Orchestre Symphonique de Montréal, to use preferred language of the province of Québec) will become the latest orchestra to inaugurate its own home when it opens a new concert hall on Sept. 7, 2011. The hall is located in the city’s Place des Arts complex (similar in style and age to Los Angeles’ Music Center) but the new auditorium has been specifically designed for the symphony.
There are several interesting things about the hall, which was designed by an architecture consortium of Diamond & Schmitt Architects Inc. and Ædifica. It will seat 1,900 plus an additional 200 choral bench seats directly behind the orchestra (similar to Walt Disney Concert Hall). As was the case when the L.A. Philharmonic moved from Dorothy Chandler Pavilion to Disney Hall, that’s nearly 1,000 less seats than its current home but will undoubtedly mean a much richer sonic experience for those in the auditorium. Like Disney Hall, the new Montreal facility will have a pipe organ (details unspecified at this point).
The new Montreal auditorium (as yet unnamed) is a traditional shoebox design with balconies surrounding all four sides of the hall. Since the acoustics are by ARTEC (the company that, among other halls, did the acoustic work for the Renée and Henry Segerstrom Hall at the Orange County Performing Arts Center in Costa Mesa), I presume the panels in the ceiling can be adjusted for optimum sound purposes. Inside the hall, 70 percent of the surfaces will be Québec native wood.
The hall’s construction was a public-private partnership between the Government of Québec and Groupe immobilier Ovation (directed by SNC-Lavalin Inc., an engineering and construction form). It’s the first cultural public-private partnership in the province.
Diamond & Schmitt’s many designs include Canada’s first opera house — the Four Seasons Center for the Performing Arts in Toronto — the Harman Centre for the Arts, home to the Shakespeare Theatre Company in Washington DC, and the renovation and expansion of Symphony Hall in Detroit. The firm is currently building the prestigious new Mariinsky Theatre in St-Petersburg, Russia.
A video on the new Montreal hall is HERE.
For the OSM, the new hall will take the place of what is called Salle Wilfrid-Pelitier, the original building in the complex that opened in 1963, a year before the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion. Like the Chandler, Salle Wilfrid Pelitier (which was originally called Place des Arts) was a multi-purpose facility, home to both the OSM and Montreal Opera, among other tenants.
Four other theaters have been added to the Place des Arts complex in succeeding decades. Place des Arts sits on what is now called the Quartier des Spectacles and, unlike Los Angeles, has its own station on the city’s vast Metro subway system (LINK), which links it to a multi-square-mile area known as the “Underground City.”
Because of that visionary concept, if you live and work atop or in the “Underground City,” it is possible for you never to have to step out into the winter cold, since hundreds of stores, churches, theaters, restaurants — in fact, just about anything you could want — are connected by miles of tunnels and subway stations.
From 1972-1974, I lived in Montreal, occupying a basement flat one-half block from the Berri di Montigny (now called Berri-UQAM) Metro station; at the time, it was the station where the three Metro lines intersected — there is now one line that doesn't come to that station. Even in the harshest weather, we could move easily around Montreal thanks to the rubber-wheeled Metro system. One of thing to note about the Metro is that many of the stations — especially the original ones — are quite stunning from an artistic point of view.
I spent many happy afternoons and evenings in Place des Arts listening to the OSM, which celebrated its 75th anniversary in 2009. By 1972, Zubin Mehta was no longer the music director (he became the orchestra’s musical leader in 1960 at the age of 24) but whenever he came back it was a major event in the orchestra’s life. In addition to concerts at its indoor home, the OSM used to play an occasional concert in the Montreal Forum (the legendary home of the ice hockey Canadiens that no longer exists). I remember hearing Mehta conducting and Artur Rubinstein as soloist in Brahms’ Piano Concerto No. 2 — awful acoustics but nonetheless memorable.
Pelitier was the orchestra’s first conductor but in the past half-century, the list of music directors has included Mehta, Rafael Frubeck de Burgos, Charles Dutoit and, now, California-born Kent Nagano (former music director of Los Angeles Opera).
Dutoit’s 25-year tenure elevated the orchestra to international standards. Nagano seems to have maintained that level and, if the results of the L.A. Phil at Disney Hall are any standard by which to judge, the new OSM should add to its sound and luster.
For the OSM Web site, click HERE.
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(c) Copyright 2011, Robert D. Thomas. All rights reserved. Portions may be quoted with attribution.
There is now one range that doesn't come to that place. Even in the toughest climate, I could switch quickly around Montreal thanks to the rubber wheeled Community program.
Posted by: ריצוף קרמיקה | February 05, 2012 at 11:35 AM