The crumbling old theater couldn’t have looked less promising: Abandoned and neglected, its faulty roof had let the elements seep in for years. Upholstered seats were caked with mold. Ornate plasterwork, saturated and destroyed. The orchestra pit practically had become a moat, so full of rain that a piano was floating in it.

But standing in this waterlogged mess of a building, David DiChiera saw the sparkling future: A grand and permanent home for opera in Detroit.

The Detroit Opera House’s rise from near ruins more than 20 years ago might not seem all that extraordinary these days, at a time when saving historic buildings from the wrecking ball has become a thread in the recent narrative of Detroit’s rebirth. But that wasn’t the case in the late 1980’s, when DiChiera — the Michigan Opera Theatre’s founder and artistic director, who is retiring this month — first walked into a vacant theater along the then-desolate Grand Circus Park and saw its potential.

Read the full article