The redevelopment of the Royal Opera House feels like a national saga. More than a decade in the coming, the building’s fortunes have been charted by every media, including that beast peculiar to the Nineties, the docusoap.
Now that the Covent Garden venue’s doors have officially reopened, the revamp continues to be mapped from the inside, and this time in pictures alone. Freelance photographer Rob Moore was commissioned two years ago to record the reconstruction process. His black and white photographs are on show in a pubic walk-through of the new building, and comprise this book, Prelude.
“Moore’s photographs from 1997 convey a sense of desecration,” says Peter Conrad in his thoughtful introduction to the book. One of the most memorable shots – and one which, as a consequence, risks becoming a cliché – is of the auditorium the morning after the farewell gala in July 1997. The carnage of broken seats and crushed bouquets is captured in the foreground, while on stage discarded props are stacked.
But Moore seems to focus just as much on what went up as what came down, and many of the shots include the construction workers themselves, getting on with the job of regeneration.
The magnitude of the task for architects Dixon-Jones and BDP is captured in the perspective and lines, with light and shadow accentuating the structures. This chiaroscuro contrasts with the images on display on the opposite wall of the corridor – a series of colourful architectural paintings of the house by Glynn Boyd Harte.
Prelude, designed by Paul Welti, is published by the ROH and is on sale at the ROH shop. The hardback is priced £50, the paperback £25.
- Industries in this article
- Brands in this article
