Royal Opera House : Hidden Jewel of Bombay

Hidden Jewel of Bombay

Royal Opera House

How many tourists and visitors to this city know existence of Royal Opera House ? 

Sadly very few. 

After last renovation completed two years back the place has restored it's glory.Even if you do not visit this place for seeing play, show or performance, go to see it's architecture, design and  also to relax for a while,  enjoy continental food  from superb menu of it's open air restaurant or shop from souvenir shop.

I have seen Royal Opera House, London few years back but  saw our very own Opera House here in the heart of SoBo yesterday ,  believe me I simply awestruck, in certain way it gives run of money to it's cousin in London.

It is rightly touted as the city's Cultural Crown Jewel and India's only surviving Opera House. The original idea for the space was conceived way-back in 1908 by Maurice Bandmann, a famous entertainer from Calcutta, and Jehangir Framji Karaka, who headed a coal brokers' firm.
This Baroque edifice was inaugurated in 1911 by King George V, and eventually completed in 1916. htmlThe design incorporated a blend of European and Indian detailing. Twenty-six rows of boxes behind the stalls were put up for the best view of the stage. The ceiling was constructed to enable even those in the gallery to hear every word uttered by the performers.

By 1917, the Opera House, like many other theaters in city, became in part a cinema. By 1925 it ceased to be a dramatic theater when British Partner rented it for screening the films.
Among leading musicians and actors who performed at the theatre were Bal Gandharva, Krishna Master, Bapu Pendharkar, Master Dinanath, Jyotsna Bhole, Londhe, Patwardhan buwa, and Prithviraj Kapoor.

In 1935 Ideal Pictures Ltd. acquired the theater and completely renovated it in the following year, including new flooring, tiles, doors, window frames and colored cements.  In eighties the pirated  video copies of  films adversely impacted the joy of watching films in theaters with the result a number of theaters were closed by the 1990.

The Maharaja of Gondal, HE Vikram Singhji, bought the Opera House in 1952. His son, HE Jyotendrasinhji, commissioned its restoration in 2010 under the leadership of conservation architect, Abha Narain Lambah. It was included in the year  2012 on  World Monuments Watch to raise awareness about its history and significance, and support preservation efforts. 

In 2009, when the restoration finally started, 16 years of neglect had taken their toll. The roof was leaking, the balconies were propped up, and the structure was very weak because it had gone through over 90 monsoons. Over the decades, all the design details were obscured or removed, and replaced with more art deco or modern details. The mammoth restoration was three-pronged  - 

1. restoring the structural integrity of the building 

2. bringing back the original design intent of the baroque theater;

3. introducing state-of-the-art acoustics, sound design, air conditioning, electrical works, and fire-fighting systems to upgrade it to a 21st-century performance space.

Each aspect of restoration came with its own team of consultants. Structural engineer Satish Dhupelia, stained-glass expert Swati Chandgadkar, art restorers Anupam Sah and Mani Kandan, sound designers Rahul Jhaveri and Richard Nowell, a whole team of conservation architects, and an army of labourers worked on the project. Recreating the design of the heritage building was like piecing together a big jigsaw puzzle. Old photos—provided by Dwivedi, and a professor in Australia, who happened to have a book containing the history and photos of the Opera House—helped to base the restoration on authentic documented records. Help also came from an unusual source: the 1975 film Prem Kahani, contained scenes shot inside the Opera House, which provided vital clues about the boxes that were missing when the restoration work started.The film clearly showed that the boxes had survived till the 1970s. At some point then, they dismantled them to make it a single-screen theater, and covered that up with plywood panels. So when the panels were removed what was found - the entire structural framework for the boxes. That made the restoration team doubly sure that it was on the right track! The elusive boxes, essential to opera houses the world over, were reinstalled. Embellished with Corinthian columns and curvilinear floral motifs, they were painted in a gorgeous palette of white, gold and red—the dominant color scheme of the Opera House.

The ceiling had survived the ravages of time, but now, because air conditioning ducts had to be accommodated, casts of it were made, the panels removed, replicated, and put back once the ducts were installed. Chandeliers from the Maharaja’s private collection were brought in, and now light up the foyer of the balcony on the second floor. The team restored the original chandeliers in the entrance foyer on the ground floor, which once belonged to David Sassoon and hung in his house, Sans Souci. Walls were covered with bevelled mirrors to increase the light inside, a distinct feature of the Opera House’s old design, Back in the day, this whole building was lit by gaslight, which had a very faint glow, To increase luminosity, they had mirrored surfaces. This was again keeping in mind the whole baroque architectural style of the Opera House. Minton tiles were carefully restored in situ, and where missing, were replaced by similar tiles from Bharat Floorings. In a move that will warm the hearts of musicians, the size of the orchestra pit has been doubled.

Finally it opened doors for guests on 21st October 2016 , nearly a century to the day it first opened, and more than two decades after it was closed , the Royal Opera House, reverberated once again with the sound of music. As London-based soprano Patricia Rozario took the stage, she knew well the historic import of the moment. This was no mere performance; she was creating, and recreating, history.

Now once again it finally become hub of drama, performance, music.