Richard Ashton on the Howard Assembly Room
January 10, 2009
“We’ve made sure that we can host not just a song or solo recital at an end stage, but also an 80-piece orchestra,” says Richard Ashton. “For that, you have to have reflective and absorbent properties. If you have an orchestra of 80, you want more of an absorbent acoustic, so we open some shutters to reveal absorbent material. If there’s an end recital piece, which is more intimate and small-scale, then we close the shutters to give a more reflective acoustic. We have acoustic curtains as well – the two ends of the space are treated with acoustic material. The architects have worked very hard to create a multi-purpose space.”
Ashton, Opera North’s general manager, is giving an example of the attention to detail that the Howard Assembly Room’s refurbishment has necessitated. This now being complete, it is to re-open on 16 January. It has not operated as a theatre for nearly a century (although it has acted as a rehearsal room for the Orchestra of Opera North for the last twenty years and will continue to do so) and will be the first venue that the company has owned and run since its foundation in 1978.
As Ashton notes, the Howard Assembly Room was originally designed, by architects George Corson and James Watson, to provide many breeds of what the Victorian governing classes considered respectable entertainment, and Opera North is aiming to make it an inclusive platform once more. Its opening programme includes performances by pianist Joanna MacGregor, vocal ensemble I Fagiolini, the Opera Group and surreal musical comedy purveyor Tiger Lillies, as well as writer Armando Iannucci in conversation with opera director Richard Jones about their new satirical opera Skin Deep and an exhibition of light installations and sounds by United Visual Artists.
“The opening programme highlights all the different activities that we would present over the period of a year,” Ashton says. “For example, there’s a rehearsal with the Orchestra of Opera North to which people are invited. There’s also a very beautiful song recital by one of the young artists that we’ve trained. We’ve opened the space at twilight to free recitals, both by the members of our orchestra and some more culturally diverse performers. We have the well-known Mr Rory Bremner, as well, coming in to do a “Q & A” session – he’ll focus on the satire in politics, and that has a nod and a wink to our main stage programme. We’re also showcasing the Oscar-winning cartoon film Peter and the Wolf for our young and family audiences, so we’re trying to encourage as many people as possible to experience the space during the ten-day opening event.” He stresses the centrality of diversity of audience, as well as fare, to the company’s vision, remarking that he hopes that the venue will be one where “children, younger people with families and our core audience of opera-goers will be able to interact and create a really buzzy feel”.
The Assembly Room’s return is part of a wider project whereby its conjoined larger relative Leeds Grand and its façade have also been heavily revamped. The £32m project, named Transformation, was funded from several sources, the largest being a £16.5m Arts Council of England grant that was secured by Leeds City Council, as well as £1m from the Heritage Lottery Fund and £5.5m from corporate and private donations encouraged by Opera North and Leeds Grand’s own campaign.
The Assembly Room aspect of the venture, Ashton tells me, was testing. “Our contractors have worked very hard to make it on time and on budget. The original Assembly Room was very successful, but in 1911 the building became a cinema – one of the earliest – and in 1923 there was a fire caused by one of the projectors on the ground level. It did quite a bit of damage – particularly to the ornate, barrel-vaulted ceiling, which was really the pinnacle. It had a very beautiful stencilled effect, with six panels. Instead of renovating it, they erected an internal shell, and had the cinema up and running again in five weeks. Over the period we made sure that the structure of the building became intact – in many ways it was about to fall down – and did a lot of structural steel work. A team of ten conservationists worked at a very high level, stripping back all the fire damage and working on the original colours of the stencil that Corson designed, and has renovated the beautiful barrel-vaulted ceiling and arch windows. Below the windows we’ve created a contemporary but very sympathetic wood feel to complement the ornate gothic appearance and ceiling.” However, the intricate and extensive work was finished successfully, and the tone of excitement in Ashton’s voice reveals his verdict on the result. “I love watching people come in and seeing their reactions,” he continues, somewhat reverently, “it’s almost jaw-droppingly gorgeous.”
When I ask how the Howard Assembly Room will contribute to the broader cultural development of Leeds, Ashton is keen to underline the more novel elements that it will introduce. “The programme will very much be complementary to the exceptional venues that Leeds already possesses,” he contends. “The programme will be unique, because much of what we produce will be either associated with our main stage work or unique to the region. For example, the Tiger Lillies won’t perform anywhere else in the North, or indeed anywhere else in the country in that period, and there’s unique material that has been created specially for the Assembly Room.”
However, he also hopes that Opera North’s relationship with its hometown will be consolidated. The Howard Assembly Room’s revival will provide “a front door on a main street in Leeds, so that people can see that Opera North is based here for 365 days a year. We always have been, but I think that most people think that, once we leave the Grand, we’re no longer based here. Although we tour the North of England, we now also have a base in Leeds at which we can perform throughout the year, and therefore make sure that the city is proud of us throughout the year rather than just during the six weeks of performances that each production has at the Grand. It’s very much cemented the company’s relationship with the city and region, and hopefully is something of which they will become proud.” Ashton, I suspect, already is.
-Richard Ashton was talking to Simon Walker
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