Mac Rating: 5.00 | Votes: 1 | Date: 03/07/2026 00:52:00

Luciano Pavarotti kept a promise on 21 April 1996: he had told impresario David DiChiera he would open Detroit's opera house, and he sang its reopening gala in a movie palace that had been left for dead a decade earlier. The Detroit Opera House at 1526 Broadway, on Grand Circus Park downtown, opened on 22 January 1922 as the Capitol Theatre, designed by C. Howard Crane - the architect behind the Fox Theatre, The Fillmore and the acoustically famed Orchestra Hall. At its premiere the 3,500-seat Italian Renaissance house was reckoned the fifth-largest theatre in the world, Detroit's first true movie palace, all crystal chandeliers, murals and a grand marble staircase. The names tracked the industry: Paramount Theatre in 1929, Broadway Capitol in 1934, then a 1960 remodel as the 3,367-seat Grand Circus Theatre. Will Rogers and the big bands had played it; Ray Charles and Roy Orbison worked its intermittent final years before a small fire closed the building for good in November 1985. Michigan Opera Theatre bought the ruin in 1988 and spent eight years and three capital campaigns transforming it. The adjoining fur and arts buildings were razed for a 75,000-square-foot stage house - the movie stage had been just 26 feet deep; the new one runs 65 feet deep and 110 wide with an 89-line fly system, the largest stage in Michigan. Restored by Albert Kahn Associates and reseated for 2,700, the house reopened with the Pavarotti gala, Dame Joan Sutherland declaring it open and ready for music; La Boheme followed that spring. Today the theatre is home to Detroit Opera and its dance series, layering five opera productions and touring ballet companies with Broadway runs, concerts and comedy across the season - the anchor of the Broadway-Madison corner of the downtown entertainment district. For visitors the building rewards arriving early: the restored lobbies, gilded plasterwork and Crane's acoustics are the show before the show, a block from Grand Circus Park station on the People Mover and QLine, with Comerica Park and the Fox marquee within a five-minute walk.