Royal Opera House

Stand for a moment on Bow Street and listen. Taxis idle at the kerb. Somewhere behind those tall columns, a stage door clicks shut. On a performance evening the pavement fills with a low murmur of voices, the rustle of coats, and the faint smell of rain on old stone. Above you, a pale portico rises over the street. This is the Royal Opera House, and people have been coming to this patch of London to hear music for almost three hundred years.

The building in front of you is not the first theatre on this spot. It is the third. The story begins in 1732, when the actor and manager John Rich opened a playhouse here. It was called the Theatre Royal, Covent Garden. In those early years it staged plays as much as music. Opera and ballet as we know them today came later. But the habit of gathering here, on a dark evening, to be entertained... that habit started long ago.

One name stands out from those first decades: George Frideric Handel. The German-born composer, who made his career in London, worked closely with this theatre. Several of his operas and oratorios had their first London seasons here. Handel played the organ during performances, and audiences came partly to watch him. So when you think of this place as purely an opera house, remember that it once rang with sacred choral music as well.

Theatres of that age had a dangerous weakness. They were lit by flame and built largely of timber. In 1808 fire destroyed the first building. Many treasures were lost, and accounts say that Handel's organ was among them. A new theatre rose quickly, and opened the following year. Then, in 1856, fire struck again. For the second time, the site was reduced to ruins. Londoners must have wondered whether this corner of the city was cursed.

The theatre you see today opened in 1858. Its architect was Edward Middleton Barry, son of the man who designed the Houses of Parliament. Barry worked fast. The building went up in a matter of months. He gave it a classical face, with columns and a deep portico, designed to impress carriages pulling up on Bow Street. Look up at the front now. Much of what you see there is his work.

Here is a detail many visitors walk straight past. Under the portico, a long carved frieze runs across the wall. It shows figures from drama and poetry. This sculpture is older than the building around it. It survived the fire of 1856 from the previous theatre, and it was set back into place. The designs are linked to the sculptor John Flaxman. So the oldest stone you can see here actually came through the flames.

In 1892 the theatre took the name it carries today: the Royal Opera House. The new name reflected what was happening on stage. Grand opera had become the main attraction. Singers from across Europe performed here, often in Italian, for audiences in evening dress. The red and gold auditorium inside, with its tiers of boxes curving around the stage, belongs to this world. It was built for seeing the performance, and also for being seen.

Now for a surprise. During the Second World War, this temple of opera became a dance hall. The seats gave way to a dance floor. Service men and women on leave came here to dance to big bands, far from the war for a few hours. After the war, the building returned to its proper purpose. It became the home of two national companies, which you know today as The Royal Opera and The Royal Ballet.

Walk a few steps to the side and look for glass and iron. Next to the theatre stands the Floral Hall, a light, airy structure also linked to Barry's era. It was built when Covent Garden was still London's great fruit, flower and vegetable market. For years the hall was used for market trading, and then it fell into neglect. Today it has been restored as a grand public space inside the opera house, now called the Paul Hamlyn Hall.

That restoration came during a major rebuilding at the end of the twentieth century. The opera house closed for several years and reopened in 1999. The work modernised the stage machinery, the backstage areas and the rehearsal studios. It also opened the building out towards the Covent Garden Piazza, the square to the north. That square was first laid out in the seventeenth century by the architect Inigo Jones, as one of London's earliest planned squares.

If you wander round to Floral Street, look up. A narrow, twisting bridge crosses high above the road. It is called the Bridge of Aspiration. It links the Royal Ballet School on one side with the opera house on the other. Young dancers use it to reach their classes and rehearsals. Its frame turns in a gentle spiral, like a body in motion. From below, you might catch a glimpse of a student passing across.

In more recent years, the opera house has worked hard to feel less closed off. A further renovation, completed in 2018, opened a new entrance and a brighter foyer. The idea was simple. People who are not attending a show can still walk in, sit down, and get a coffee. You do not need a ticket to feel the atmosphere of the building during the day. Many visitors never realise they are allowed inside.

Before you move on, take one more look at the portico. Imagine the carriages of the eighteen-fifties, the wartime dancers, the market porters carrying flowers past these doors. Then listen to the street as it is now. The taxis. The tourists. Perhaps a rehearsal pianist, faintly, through an open window. As you walk away towards the Piazza, notice how quickly the grand facade gives way to small shops and cobbles... and how close London keeps its stage to its everyday life.