Grand Theatre & Opera House (Leeds)

• Theatre ID
  1841
• Built / Converted
  1878
• Dates of use
  • 1878: continuing
• Current state
  Extant
• Current use
  Theatre (Theatre and Opera House)
• Address
  46 New Briggate, Leeds, West Yorkshire, LS1 6NZ, England

Details

Well described by Christopher Brereton as ‘a one-off theatre for the architect, but probably the finest of its size in Britain’, the Grand is a building of metropolitan stature, conceived to a scale rarely even planned, let alone executed on this side of the English Channel. Originated by local industrialists it cost the immense sum of £62,000 to build. It would appear that George Corson was responsible for its strikingly unusual architectural design, with J R Watson providing theatre expertise. The theatre occupies a three-quarter acre site and originally included a concert hall (the Assembly Room) and a row of shops, producing a façe 162ft long. To the north it adjoins the northernmost of the Leeds arcades. The Assembly Room became the Plaza Cinema under separate lessees but has recently been reinstated as part of the Grand complex. Externally, the main façe, in hard red brick with stone dressings, is in a highly eclectic and romantic mixture of styles in which Romanesque and Gothic predominate. The entrance block has three major bays expressed at ground floor level with round arched openings, the centre one divided by a column supporting two contained arches; at first floor level there are 1+3+1 round arched windows. The bays are divided by shafts crowned by conical-roofed tourelles. A central gable with traceried rose is flanked by pyramidal slated-roofed turrets. To the right the long flat facade is in similar style but lower key. Originally the shop fronts were set within a gothic arcade, of which two arches only are at present visible. The right hand corner block takes the form of a squat tower with pyramidal roof, the ground floor being occupied by the separate arched entrance to the Assembly Room (this originally matched the central arch to the theatre entrance but was altered with a cement finish when cinema took over). The internal spaces, front and rear of house, are unusually generous and the public areas, with a spacious main staircase rising in one flight and returning as two, have a sense of occasion noticeably absent in most commercially-driven Victorian theatres. The auditorium is magnificent and stylistically unique in Britain, an opulent high Victorian invention with clustered Gothic shafts framing the proscenium. The saucer-domed, richly encrusted ceiling is carried on four pendentives of fretted fan-vault form which flow into depressed peripheral arches. The three sweeping horse-shoe balconies are supported on iron columns. The first and second balconies have their arms divided into eight boxes (four over four) on each side. The third balcony is divided by a parapet into a gallery of nine rows rising behind an amphitheatre of four rows which extends into side slips. Above is a fourth level of upper slips. The balcony fronts are splendidly decorated with deeply undercut plasterwork, incorporating imaginatively designed foliated scrolls, bosses etc. The proscenium, flanked by two projecting superimposed boxes in a pedimented, modelled frame flanked at upper level by female figure sculpture, has a grand, semi-circular inner frame with richly scalloped decoration. The present powerful colour-scheme, completely appropriate to the architectural style, is by Clare Ferraby. The installation of an orchestra pit elevator in 1975 resulted in the removal of the front edge of the stage, making it appear too abruptly cut off. Apart from this, it is a tribute to Corson's skill that very little significant alteration has taken place. The only really regrettable and irreversible change was the removal of the unique and wonderfully complete complex of sub-stage machinery in the 1970s. This was an early wood and iron stage complete with traps, bridges, cuts and sloats. Given the lavish space available backstage compared to nearly every other major theatre in Britain, this loss of historic fabric was tragic and unnecessary, attributable, surely, to ignorance rather than need. The accommodation gained could have been created elsewhere. The first floor Assembly Room is in a completely different but pleasing classical style. After serving for many years for miscellaneous entertainments and events, it began to be used as a cinema in 1907 and was then radically altered for cinema use in 1911. The floor was lowered substantially and the balcony was altered. Following a fire in 1923, an external projection box was provided and the interior completely remodelled. It is this, c.1924 interior that is seen today. It has a shallow arched ceiling (above which the original Assembly Room ceiling can still be seen) and is somewhat reminiscent of a mid nineteenth century concert room but with a deep, serpentine-fronted balcony at one end. The flat floor extends into a shallow orchestra recess framed by little kiosks with niches. This amazing theatre complex has been the home of Opera North since 1978. It is to be hoped that proposals, currently in formation (2004-5) to carry out a restoration and development scheme worthy of its national importance, will soon be brought to fruition.

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• Events
  • 1878 Use: continuing
  • 1878 Design/Construction:
    • George Corson & James Robinson Watson - Architect
  • 1986 - 1988 Design/Construction: Array
    • Clare Ferraby - Consultant: Decorations In Auditorium And Assembly Room
  • 1988 Design/Construction:
    • Hudson White - Consultant: Decoration Of Plaza Assembly Room
• Capacities
  • Original: c.2800
  • Later: 1912: 1874 1970: 1558
  • Current: 1550
• Listings
  • Grade II*
• Stage type
  • Pros Raked 1:22
• Dimensions
  • Stage dimensions: Depth: 14.02m Width SL: 11.07m SR: 11.07m
  • Proscenium width: 9.96m
  • Height to grid: 18.81m
  • Orchestra pit: Enlarged. Flexible
• Unreliable anecdotes
  The Assembly Room, included in the complex, is NOT the Leeds Assembly Room(s) of 1777