Wieting Opera House

The block in Syracuse on which the Wieting Opera House was located, near Clinton Square, was initially a hardware store, shoe store, and "granite hall", a performance hall. The block burnt in 1849 or 1851, and was rebuilt shortly afterwards, as a large building with a hall on top by Charles A. Wheaton and Horace Wheaton. Their hall was the city's first to have a gallery. The building was purchased by John Wieting in 1850. Wieting, who had made a fortune in lecturing, felt that Syracuse did not have a public hall that was proportionally large enough for the city. He either funded improvements or the building of a new hall in 1852. The hall was opened on December 16, 1852. Wieting had plans to develop his building further, but before he could, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Buffalo Bill, Peter Cagger, Wendell Phillips, Samuel J. Tilden, Henry Jarvis Raymond, Stephen A. Douglas, John Albion Andrew, John Brough, Edwin D. Morgan, John Sherman, Gerrit Smith, William Lloyd Garrison, Hannibal Hamlin, Samuel Joseph May, Chester A. Arthur, John Van Buren, Horatio Seymour, and Anna Elizabeth Dickinson. The hall also held performances, with singers such as Adelina Patti, Christina Nilsson, and Euphrosyne Parepa-Rosa. During the 1860s, Wieting Hall hosted many minstrel shows by performers including Lew Benedict, Primrose and West, and Charles, Daniel and Gus Frohman. == Political conventions ==

The hall was regularly the site of state conventions for political parties; the historian Franklin H. Chase stated that it held more conventions than any other American hall. Future governor Edwin Morgan received the nomination. It was the site of pledges to the Union during the American Civil War, and a two-lecture series on November 14 and 15, 1861, by Frederick Douglass, titled "The Rebellion, its Cause and Remedy". In anticipation of Douglass's arrival, some Syracuse residents protested his visit; a handbill was circulated advocating for citizens to "drive him from our city!" Syracuse's mayor, Charles Andrews, fearing a mob might attack Douglass, deployed the police and drafted 50 additional men. He was joined in his efforts by the county sheriff and soldiers training at a nearby camp. Wieting refused to cancel Douglass's performance, and he arrived to a hall that was protected with soldiers and greeted by Andrews himself. The 1861 convention of the New York State Teachers Association was held at the hall, with speeches from figures including Susan B. Anthony. Dickens visited Syracuse in 1868 and read from A Christmas Carol and The Pickwick Papers for a reported two hours. In September 1871 Roscoe Conkling took leadership of the New York State Republican party at a convention at the Wieting. One of the last conventions held there was of the Liberal party in 1872. == Wieting Opera House ==

Twenty-four years after it opened, in 1870, Wieting had the building renamed the Wieting Opera House as part of a series of renovations. The building opened under its new name on September 19, 1870. It had a seating capacity of 1,017, and, despite its name, did not have a true opera performance until an 1886 performance by the American Opera Company. Foster Hirsch notes that opera was "not intended to be the theatre's staple" and the name merely offered a "respectable cover". In 1878 the hall hosted a convention of the National Liberal League. One of the last performances was Sarah Bernhardt, who appeared in March 1881 in Camille. The Syracuse University Alma Mater's first performance was under the title "Song of Syracuse" at the Wieting on March 15, 1893. This hall burnt down on September 3, 1896, and Mary Wieting funded a rebuilding, which opened on September 16, 1897. She had been involved in the reconstruction, attempting to make the opera house "absolutely fire-proof" and offering suggestions to Oscar Cobb as he designed the new building. It was sometimes referred to as the "New Wieting Opera House". The building was heavily decorated, colored gold and rose, with chandeliers, floors made from Italian mosaic, silk and velvet drapes, and doors made from bronze. The Shubert brothers managed the opera house for almost 25 years beginning in the early 1900s. == Notable performances and reputation ==

At its peak, the Wieting was considered "one of the premiere theaters in the East". Its construction and the presence of several similar theaters developed the city into a place to try-out plays that would later go to be performed on Broadway. The theater was a member of The Theatrical Syndicate, which gave it "first claim" on a number of Broadway shows and revivals in the area. In 1889 Mary Wieting hired Sam S. Shubert as a treasurer, and two years later made him house manager. He in turn hired his brother, Levi. Sam progressed his career here for a time, producing his first show circa 1896 with a production of A Texas Steer. However, he left to manage the Bastable Theatre, a local competitor to the Wieting, in December 1897. Shubert led the Bastable in competition with the Wieting and the greater Theatrical Syndicate. According to the 2008 book Our Movie Houses, "all the big stars of the Broadway stage performed at the Wieting during the later decades of the nineteenth century." A 1930 article in the Syracuse Herald claimed that "[e]very theatrical star of any consequence in America since 1850 has appeared at the Wieting." In December 1895 The School Girl starring Minnie Palmer came to the United States for a tour. It began on December 23 at the Wieting; shortly before the performance Richard Golden, a co-star, fell ill and the show's director William Gill was forced to take his place. The Wedding Day, starring Lillian Russell, opened its touring season on September 15, 1896, in what was also the newly rebuilt Wieting's first performance. The stop kicked off a tour that was described as having "exceptional success". In January 1899 the theater showed chronomatograph videos in an event kicked off by Burton Holmes. During Theodore Roosevelt's 1900 campaign for the presidency he spoke at the Wieting and nearby Clinton Square. An estimated crowd of slightly under 15,000 people heard him speak. On September 7, 1900, the Wieiting hosted a performance of Anthony Hope Hawkins to raise funds in the aftermath of that year's Galveston hurricane that ran from 11 am to 11 pm. In 1905 the theatre advertised that Ida Tarbell would be performing there for twenty weeks, but this did not happen. The operetta Naughty Marietta was first run for a week at the Wieting beginning October 24, 1910, and it premiered on Broadway the following month. The New York Philharmonic Orchestra performed several times at the Wieting, first in 1896. A 1910 rendition of The Bohemian Girl put on by the orchestra was well received critically, but somewhat poorly attended. == Later history ==

The New Wieting Opera House added movies to its offerings in the early 1900s. The Wieting showed a premiere of the 1921 film The Right Way, which advocated for prison reform. The estate of Mary Wieting, who had died in 1927, held the opera house until they sold it to the Hemacon Realty Corporation for $1 million in July 1929. In May 1930 the Syracuse Herald described the building as probably "the outstanding relic of the past still existent in modern Syracuse". That year, the Shuberts's lease on the theater was set to expire on August 1, and the owners were unwilling to undertake reconstruction and expansion projects. The company's head said "There will be no theater on the Wieting site after Aug. 1. That much can be said with assurance." It was reported that the theater would likely be replaced by a garage, although a local theater owner, Nathan Robbins, was working to finance a reconstruction project. The cost of purchase was later disclosed to be $200,000. By the time it was sold, the theater was in very poor condition, with water damage and unstable walls. The seats were removed, and the walls were reinforced, with one being completely reconstructed. At one point the land was occupied by Syracuse's E. W. Edwards department store. The current plot is occupied by the Atrium at Clinton Square, redeveloped in 1972. == Footnotes ==