Музыкальный зал Цинциннати: История и архитектура

Music Hall, commonly known as Cincinnati Music Hall, is a classical music performance hall in Cincinnati, Ohio, completed in 1878. It serves as the home for the Cincinnati Ballet, Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra, Cincinnati Opera, May Festival Chorus, and the Cincinnati Pops Orchestra. In January 1975, it was recognized as a National Historic Landmark by the U. S. Department of the Interior for its distinctive Venetian Gothic architecture. The building was designed with a dual purpose – to house musical activities in its central auditorium and industrial exhibitions in its side wings. It is located at 1241 Elm Street, across from the historic Washington Park in Over the Rhine, minutes from the center of the downtown area. Music Hall was built over a pauper's cemetery, which has helped fuel its reputation as one of the most haunted places in America. In June 2014, Music Hall was included on the National Trust for Historic Preservation's annual list of America's 11 most endangered historic places. After being closed for over a year for a $143 million renovation, Music Hall was reopened in 2017.

Cincinnati Music Hall was designed by architect Samuel Hannaford and is considered one of the last and best examples of the Victorian Gothic Revival Style. Some of the spaces most notable features include the steeply pitched gable roof, the corbelled brick, the tracery featured on the front windows, and the large Rose Window on the facade of the building. Additionally, the facility varies from a traditional performance hall in the fact that Music Hall is actually made up of 3 distinct and separate buildings; Music Hall, the North Exposition Building, and the South Exposition Building. The design also includes Carriage Passageways designed for easy entrance in the case of bad weather. Each building also includes individual sandstone carvings, designed to display the different purposes of each space. The center building, Music Hall, has musical instruments such as French horns included on the facade, flowers and birds are included on the South Exposition Hall to represent its horticultural heritage, and scientific tools are featured on the North Exposition Hall to represent its mechanical heritage. The building was also known for its detailed brickwork, which included both carved and painted details on the building's exterior. However, during the 1969–1975 renovation, the building's exterior was sandblasted, destroying the majority of these details.

On September 13, 1818, the City of Cincinnati purchased a plot of land from Jesse Embree for $3,200 on the west side of Elm Street, just north of 12th Street. On January 22, 1821, the Ohio State Legislature passed an act that established "a Commercial Hospital and Lunatic Asylum for the state of Ohio." Thus, Ohio's first insane asylum was erected in Cincinnati on of land bounded by the Miami and Erie Canal. The Commercial Hospital and Lunatic Asylum of Ohio was the parent institution for the Orphan Asylum, the City Infirmary, the Cincinnati Hospital, and Longview Asylum. which is now 12th and Central Parkway. Following the Cholera outbreak of 1832, the land was used as a "pauper's cemetery" until 1857 when city encroachment on the neighborhood made it unsuitable for such uses. Serious complaints from abutting property owners forced the "Pest House" to be relocated outside of the city limits. On January 29, 1859, the city converted the property into a park known as Elm Street Park and the land and buildings were used for exposition purposes until 1876 when it was turned over to the Music Hall Association. At the same time, German musicians had plans to erect "a great temporary building opposite Washington Park" for the North American Saengerbund, which Cincinnati was to host during the summer of 1870. The two competing groups reached an agreement to construct a building that would be shared. Depending on its use, the building was sometimes called Exposition Hall or Saengerfest Hall.

Exposition Hall was a huge wooden structure measuring 250 feet (76 m) long, 100 feet (30 m) wide, and 80 feet (24 m) tall. a wealthy Cincinnatian of German ancestry, who afterwards decided Cincinnati needed a more permanent structure. First, that the site be free from taxation, and second, that a further sum of $125,000 be raised by the community. When only $106,000 was raised Springer donated an additional $20,000. From the outset, the musical and industrial interests collided, so Springer offered an additional $50,000 if $100,000 could be raised. This additional sum of money would be used for the construction of buildings around the hall for the purpose of holding industrial expositions. The total cost of Music Hall was $300,962.78 with the exposition wings an additional $146,331.51. Construction on Cincinnati Music Hall began in 1876, shortly after Hannaford and Porter was given the contract. The project was divided into multiple phases, first focusing on the construction of the center building, Music Hall. Following several issues regarding weather and resources, the project was fast tracked in hopes of completing work on Music Hall prior to the 1878 May Festival Chorus performance. After Music Hall was completed, new funds were raised and resources were allocated for the completion of both the Northern and Southern Exposition Halls, two spaces utilized as the City of Cincinnati's primary convention spaces from their construction through the 1970s. Although the 3 buildings were constructed separately, they were immediately joined together using second story passageways. This allowed for events to span all 3 spaces while also allowing several groups to share this space at once.

The first performance took place on May 14, 1878. An estimated 6,000 saw the opera "Alceste" by Christoph Willibald Gluck performed, as well as Beethoven's "Eroica" symphony. These performances were especially significant as they included the May Festival Chorus and the Cincinnati Opera, two groups that were officially transitioning from other venues, such as the Cincinnati Zoo, to Music Hall as their permanent homes. Music Hall was then used independently for over a year, until both the North and South Exposition Halls were officially completed on September 2, 1879.

In addition to Music Hall's traditional role of housing the city's major arts organizations and formerly the college of music, the building served as Cincinnati's major convention center through the 1970s, when the Duke Energy Convention Center was built. As early as 1879, Music Hall began to see notable guests such as President Ulysses S. Grant. He spoke at the venue on December 12, 1879. He addressed the public at Music Hall and the venue was overflowing with people according to the Cincinnati Enquirer. The building has also hosted numerous other presidents such as William McKinley, Theodore Roosevelt, Benjamin Harrison, and Dwight D. Eisenhower. June 22–24, 1880, the Democratic National Convention was held at Music Hall. This event resulted in the nomination of Winfield S. Hancock of Pennsylvania for President and William H. English of Indiana for Vice President in the United States presidential election of 1880. Additionally, this event was noteworthy due to the unique addition of Western Union Telegraph Wires to Music Hall for convention use, a task that had not been completed for major performance halls in the past. Over time, the space also hosts numerous, notable musical performances such as the well known conductor, Richard Strauss in 1904, the world premier of the Opera “Taming of the Shrew” in 1953, and many other musical performances. Prior to being given their own homes, several Cincinnati organizations were housed in music hall including the Cincinnati Art Museum, the Cincinnati College of Music, the Cincinnati College of Engineering, and the television station WCET. The hall also housed a roller skating venue in one of the exposition halls for over 30 years, and was home to the Ohio Valley Exposition for over half a century. The Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra produced a projection mapping event called Lumenocity on August 3–4, 2013, August 1–3, 2014, August 5–9, 2015, and August 5–7, 2016. The program incorporated a diverse array of visual elements never before presented with a live orchestra. The event was very popular & was the first step in creating the city wide projection mapping event called Blink.

In 2016, Cincinnati Music Hall was closed for a 14 month, $143 million renovation. The renovation included the addition of 30,000 additional square feet of usable space, as well as the structural and cosmetic renovation of the buildings traditional performance and event spaces. Approximately half of the renovations funding was provided by private donors, while the other half came from public funding sources such as the City of Cincinnati and tax credits from the State of Ohio. The space officially opened to the public October 6–7, 2017 with a weekend of performances and all access tours of the building.

Various employees of Music Hall have described experiencing strange events in the facility, while others say they've never experienced anything at all. In the 2005 documentary Music Hall: Cincinnati Finds Its Voice, Patricia K. Beggs, the CEO of the Cincinnati Opera, acknowledged, "Ghosts? Um, yes. Indeed, there are Music Hall ghosts." Erich Kunzel, late conductor for the Cincinnati Pops, once stated, "Sometimes when I was arranging, getting things together, I've worked here all night long. So I've met these people. They're not in the offices, but when you go out into the house they're there, they're upstairs. If you think I'm crazy just come here sometime at three o'clock in the morning. They're very friendly." Ghosts were first reported before Music Hall was built, after the ground was first excavated for an Exposition Hall elevator. Neither Marie Gallagher, who worked at Music Hall for 25 years, nor Ed Vignale, facilities engineer, have experienced anything unusual at Music Hall. Viganle noted that some strange sounds could be attributed to Music Hall's acoustical ability to project sounds. Music Hall was selected as one of The Travel Channel's Most Terrifying Places in America and for the SYFY TV show Ghost Hunters.