Photo by Steve Crecelius

Ellie Caulkins Opera House
Denver, Colorado

Opera lovers the world over flocked to Denver on Sept. 10, 2005, to celebrate the much-anticipated opening of the new Ellie Caulkins Opera House in the Denver Performing Arts Complex. The event—which brought to the Mile High City Renée Fleming, Ben Heppner and other international opera greats—provided the venue with its first acoustical test. The “Ellie” passed with flying colors and is already being heralded as one of the finest opera venues in the world.

Formerly called the Denver Municipal Auditorium Theater, the historic building underwent a $92 million renovation, designed to provide Opera Colorado, Colorado Ballet, The Cleo Parker Robinson Dance Company and other local performing arts organizations with an outstanding venue for unamplified performances. The renovation required gutting the interior of the building—the exterior of which has been awarded National Landmark status—and crafting an entirely new 2,268-seat performance space within the existing structure.

The project was funded in part by a $25 million bond issue that passed by an overwhelming voter margin and by private donations, including a $7 million gift from the Caulkins family in honor of the theater’s namesake.

Our Work: In designing the acoustics for the new venue, Robert F. Mahoney & Associates and the project’s lead architectural firm, Semple Brown Design, turned to the premier opera houses of Europe for inspiration: La Scala, Covent Garden, Opera Garnier and the Vienna Staatsoper. The two firms carefully developed a theater configuration, characterized by a tall volume, shallow balconies with little overhang and side boxes, to produce outstanding acoustics for opera and ballet.

Because the Ellie was created to pay tribute to the vocal arts, Mahoney and Semple Brown’s Peter Lucking painstakingly crafted every aspect of the venue with one goal in mind: to ensure the utmost clarity and warmth of vocal sound and a proper balance between singers onstage and the orchestra in the pit. To help achieve this Herculean task, Mahoney sculpted virtually every surface of the theater to give each seat the transparent acoustics demanded by the most discriminating listeners—regardless of where they choose to sit. One of the project’s groundbreaking innovations is the pit’s movable upstage wall—which allows the conductor to mute the brass and percussion sections as necessary, providing yet another way to ensure vocal clarity throughout the opera house. The Ellie is the only opera venue in the world to feature this type of flexible orchestra configuration.

Accolades:
“Acoustically, the hall is a natural marvel. You would expect that from a theater carefully designed to glorify the unamplified human voice.”
– Marc Shulgold, Rocky Mountain News Music and Dance Critic

“Now audiences will be able to hear opera the way it is supposed to sound.”
– Peter Russell, Opera Colorado President

“The Ellie has excellent acoustics, especially for voices. From the first balcony, there wasn’t a single lost word or note through the long night. The sound is clear and intimate… .”
– Janos Gereben, San Diego Magazine.

“The star was the opera house itself. And the acoustics were drawing raves. How good is the sound?… The answer is: excellent.”
– Kyle MacMillan, Denver Post Fine Arts Critic

During the Ellie's opening gala "two powerhouse scenes by visiting stars... would have been at home in any major house, but arguably sounded even better with the excellent acoustics of the new Denver opera house."
– David Littlejohn, The Wall Street Journal

Theater Type: Performing Arts Center
Project Type: Renovation and Restoration
Location: Denver, Colorado
Completion: September 2005
Total Project Cost: $92 million
Seat Count: 2,268
Architect: Semple Brown Design
Theater Consultant: Public Assembly Consultants, Inc.
Owner’s Representative: Rodney Smith, General Manager of the Denver Performing Arts Complex