The Tivoli Theatre: Original Phipps Theatre

Images have recently come to light revealing what Her Majesty’s Theatre and Opera House (later to be renamed the Tivoli) looked like shortly after opening in 1872.
 
The pictures come from a booklet produced by the Managing Director Mr Robert Arthur which illustrate all the theatres in his ownership at the time.

 

 

The façade of her Majesty’s Theatre and Opera House 1872. Note the existence of a shop unit behind the centre doors. The original theatre, before reconstruction by Frank Matcham, had two small shop units incorporated into the building.
The original auditorium. The wooden barriers between the pit and the front stalls and a barrier separating the Dress Circle and the Upper Circle behind can be clearly seen. An original pit bench still covered in a gold fabric has recently been discovered on the fly floor.
The Stage and Boxes. In his reconstruction, Frank Matcham retained the circular ceiling and the curve at the top of the proscenium arch. He replaced the two rows of boxes with one and pulled forward the dress circle balcony to provide additional seating.
The photograph shows the landing at the top of the Grand Staircase leading to the Dress Circle. As a result of information in this photograph we have now uncovered a section of the original balustrade which was been hidden since the Matcham re-build.

 

Images reproduced by permission of the TheatreSearch Archive.

All Images and Text Copyright Aberdeen Tivoli Trust ©2007
Valid XHTML 1.0! Website built using TYPO3 Valid CSS!