9/12/2023 0 Comments Vienna opera house stage floor![]() The Paint Frame, located above the rear stage, features in several photographs and shows the English method of painting stage cloths hanging on vertical frames. The album also records some of the workshop areas in the Royal Opera House. A new switchboard control for the stage lighting was installed at stage level, and the last remnants of gas-lighting were removed from the theatre. This allowed the weight of the cloths to be taken by the machinery, and the additional height in the fly-tower provided an extra level of storage above the fly-floor. Sachs raised the height of the fly-tower, introducing a new grid and a continental counterweight system. The Royal Italian Opera, as the theatre was known from 1858 to 1892, had been a traditional ‘hemp’ house, with stage cloths and scenery moved by ropes, pulled by the stage hands on the fly-floor. The apron that extended out beyond the proscenium arch into the auditorium, which had been an additional performance area for the singers, was removed, allowing the orchestra pit to be expanded. The basement area beneath the stage was excavated in order to hold the motors which powered these bridges. The bridges were eight feet deep, ran the width of the stage, and could be raised independently or together. The raked stage was removed and replaced by a flat floor containing five movable bridges to Sachs’s own design. The work undertaken by Sachs was the first major renovation to the stage since the theatre had opened in 1858. These changes are not recorded in this commemorative album which is devoted entirely to the areas behind and above the proscenium arch. Sachs’s first task at the Royal Opera House was to oversee the alterations to the auditorium and front of House areas. In 1898 he was responsible for the installation of unique electrically operated stage lifts at Theatre Royal, Drury Lane and that same year, was made technical adviser to the Royal Opera House, an appointment he held to the end of his life. Between 18 he published a three-volume treatise on Modern Opera Houses and Theatres, which included the Royal Opera House and was beautifully illustrated with his architectural drawings. ![]() Sachs’s other main interest was in theatre buildings and stage technology. On his return to England, he took part in fire-fighting in London, becoming Vice-President of the National Fire Brigades’ Union, and in 1897 he founded the British Fire Prevention Committee. He worked as an ensign in the Berlin Royal Fire Brigade (1890) and later spent time with the Vienna Metropolitan and the Paris Fire Brigades. Sachs had a life-long interest in the prevention of fires, and their management in public buildings. Born in London, he was educated at the University College School, Hampstead, and Königliche Technische Hochschule, Charlottenburge, Germany, qualifying as an architect in 1892. Sachs was an architect and engineer who specialised in the prevention of theatre fires. This collection consists of a leather-bound commemorative album of photographs recording the work undertaken by Edwin Otho Sachs (1870-1919) to modernise the stage and production areas of the Royal Opera House in 1900-1901. ![]()
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