Four Seasons Centre

The Four Seasons Centre for the Performing Arts is a 2,071-seat theatre in Toronto, Ontario, Canada which had its grand opening Wednesday, June 14, 2006. The first actual performance however, commenced in September 2006 with the first Canadian production of Richard Wagner's Der Ring Des Nibelungen. The theatre, designed by Jack Diamond, is at the southeast corner of University Avenue and Queen Street West, across from Osgoode Hall. The land on which it is located was a gift from the Government of Ontario.

History

The venue is the home of the Canadian Opera Company (COC) and the National Ballet of Canada, replacing the Sony Centre for the Performing Arts (earlier named the Hummingbird Centre and O'Keefe Centre) that had housed the COC for some 40 years. Earlier in the city's history the Grand Opera House had stood at Bay and Adelaide, but it was demolished in 1927.

Failed Bay St project

There had been a long standing desire to replace the O'Keefe Centre with lobbying led by financier Hal Jackman, president of the Ballet Opera House corporation. In 1984 Ontario premier Bill Davis promised that a piece of provincial owned land at Bay and Wellesley would be the home for the new opera house. The prime real estate was estimated to be worth some $75 million."It's back to Bay St. for ballet-opera house" Rosemary Speirs Toronto Star.Jul 20, 1988. pg. A.1 A design competition was won by Moshe Safdie who proposed a strikingly postmodern project ()....
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