Almeida Theater

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The Almeida Theater, 2011

The Almeida Theater , or The Almeida for short , is a London theater in the Islington district . It's located on Almeida Street. In addition to world premieres and English premieres, mainly English authors and classics of world literature are staged. Successful Almeida productions often move to West End stages .

The building is listed on the Statutory List of Buildings of Special Architectural or Historic Interest with Grade II.

history

The classical building was built in 1837 under the direction of the architects Robert Lewis Roumieu (1814-1877) and Alexander Dick Gough (1804-1871) as the Islington Literary and Scientific Institute . It was opened in 1838, the year Queen Victoria came to the throne . In addition to a lecture hall, a laboratory and a museum, the building also included a library, which in 1839 consisted of 33,000 volumes. In 1872 the library was sold. From 1874 to 1886 the building served the Wellington Club as a clubhouse. In 1890 it was taken over by the Salvation Army , who redesigned the former library room as a prayer room and had a wooden gallery built in. During the war , the basement served as an air raid shelter. In 1955 the Salvation Army abandoned the building. From 1956 it was used for a short time as the showroom of Mr. Beck's Carnivals and Novelties Factory . The building was empty until 1978. In 1980 the later founders of the Almeida Theater, Pierre Audi and Chris Naylor, used it for a theater festival. This date is considered to be the actual founding date of the Almeida Theater. As a result, different events continued to take place in the house. Gradually the house was equipped with functional rooms such as a bar, changing rooms for the actors and work rooms. The restoration of the facade and the renovation measures were carried out from 1983 by the Foley Fischer Burrell Architect . During this time initiatives were formed to set up the house as a permanent theater.

In November 1999, the Arts Council of England awarded the Almeida Theater a £ 1.5 million grant for necessary renovation work. National Lottery support of £ 5.8 million enabled a major renovation that began in 2001.

In 2000 the house was closed for extensive renovations. A former bus depot near King's Cross Station served as an alternative venue for the next few years . The temporary architects were also Foley Fischer Burrell. The last play performed there was a spectacular production of Shakespeare's Storm , in which the stage was completely flooded and a hole was cut in the roof for Ariel's performance.

The hall, which before the restoration had space for 500 people, now has 321/327 seats, as the stage and forecourt now occupy the same space as the auditorium. The entrance area, foyer, bar and staircase are now in a side extension and can be seen through a large glass front. The administration and a rehearsal room are housed in a building not far from the theater.

architecture

The building has a three-part, two-storey facade in the form of classicism. The upper and lower floors are separated from each other by a stepped cornice. The middle part of the facade is designed as a risalit , which is marked on both sides by powerful colossal pilasters . The surrounding, multi-tiered main cornice , like the whole building, is plastered white. In the central projection, three windows open on each floor. The windows on the upper floor of the side parts are framed by wide pilasters. The former entrances on the side are marked by a portico-like , pillar-supported porch.

On the left side of the building is a one-story new building with a flat roof and a continuous glass front. This is where today's entrance to the theater is located, as well as access to a wide ramp that enables trucks to enter the house.

The former reading room is now used as a theater. The stage and auditorium are roughly the same size. The stage space is closed off by a curved, non-plastered brick wall, to which the gallery for the audience is seamlessly connected. The gallery, built around 1900 and supported on cast iron columns, which is clad with a golden-brown embossed wallpaper ( anaglypta ), has been preserved in its original form.

Theater, performance, opera

Almeida Opera

Pierre Audi also established an International Festival of Contemporary Music and Performance , an international festival for contemporary music and music theater, which was held every summer until 2007 and became world-famous as the Almeida Opera . It produced a number of commissioned works, world premieres and British premieres, including the 1989 opera Golem by John Casken and the 1995 staged concert Experimentum Mund by the Italian composer Giorgio Battistelli . As part of the Almeida summer season, works by Thomas Adès , Harrison Birtwistle , Xaver Dayer , Peter Eötvös , Alexander Goehr and Michael Nyman as well as a number of British composers who are not known in the German-speaking area were performed. The London daily praised the festival in 2006 as follows: "In the past twenty years there has been no better stage for new European opera in London than the Almeida summer season."

Michael Attenborough closed the festival in 2012 with the following words: “I felt no artistic relationship with the opera festival. Modern opera deliberately avoids anything as old-fashioned as melody or emotion. This seems to me to be a contradiction to what music is about. "

Artistic director

Productions (selection)

1990-1999
2000-2019

Awards

Almeida productions have received several prestigious British theater awards. In addition to numerous nominations, productions or individual actors have won the Laurence Olivier Award twenty times since 1990 , which is considered the highest honor in British theater. In 2016, Robert Icke's production of Orestie received the award for best director and additional nominations in three other categories - best actress, best stage design, best lighting design. In 2016 the theater also received the Stage Award London - Theater of the Year . In 2018, the Almeida was once again named the London Theater of the Year.

Web links

Commons : Almeida Theater  - collection of pictures, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ AP Baggs, Diane K. Bolton and Patricia EC Cropotin: 'Islington: Social and cultural activities', in: A History of the County of Middlesex: Volume 8, Islington and Stoke Newington Parishes, ed. TFT Baker and CR Elrington (London , 1985), pp. 45-51. British History Online [1] , accessed August 10, 2016.
  2. ^ Almeida Theater. DictionaryCentral.Com. Retrieved August 11, 2016.
  3. ↑ The number of seats differs in the sources
  4. ^ Almeida Theater: Archived Events , accessed September 11, 2016.
  5. ^ Giorgio Bagnoli: The La Scala Encyclopedia of the Opera , Simon and Schuster 1993, p. 164. Retrieved online from: [2] on September 11, 2016.
  6. ↑ Janet Goodridge: Rhythm and Timing of Movement in Performance: Drama, Dance and Ceremony , Jessica Kingsley Publishers 1999, p. 25. Retrieved online from: [3] on September 11, 2016.
  7. ^ Peter Moore Foundation , accessed August 23, 2018.
  8. ↑ Andrew Clement: Classical music: Les Aveugles , June 26, 2006, accessed September 11, 2016.
  9. ↑ Tim Walker: Theater director Michael Attenborough is no fan of modern opera , The Telegraph (London), August 2, 2012, accessed September 11, 2016.
  10. ^ David M Cummings: International Who's Who in Music and Musicians' Directory . Routledge, London June 13, 2000, ISBN 0-948875-53-4 , p. 26.
  11. ↑ Awards 1990-2015
  12. ↑ Awards , on the Almeida Theater website, accessed August 17, 2016
  13. ^ The Stage Awards 2016
  14. ↑ London Theaters News, Winner stage Awards 2018, accessed April 16, 2018