The Orpheum Theatre is a music venue located at 1 Hamilton Place in Boston, Massachusetts. One of the oldest theaters in the United States, it was built in 1852 and was originally known as the Boston Music Hall, the original home of the Boston Symphony Orchestra. The concert hall was converted for use as a vaudeville theater in 1900 and was renamed the Orpheum Theatre in 1906. In 1915 it was acquired by Loew's Theatres and substantially rebuilt. Today it operates as a mixed use hall for live music concerts.
(The theater has no connection with Boston's "Music Hall", which is now known as the Citi Performing Arts Center.)
The Boston Music Hall was built in 1852 thanks to a donation of $100,000 made by the Harvard Musical Association for its construction.
The hall was the first home of the Boston Symphony Orchestra, founded in 1881 and was also the birthplace of the New England Conservatory of Music. The BSO performed the American premiere of the Piano Concerto No. 1 by Tchaikovsky there. After being threatened by road building and subway construction, the Music Hall was replaced as the home of the Boston Symphony in 1900 by Symphony Hall.
On December 31, 1862, the eve of the Emancipation Proclamation going into effect, Northern abolitionists gathered at the Music Hall to celebrate as the clock struck midnight. Frederick Douglass, Wendell Phillips, Harriet Beecher Stowe, William Lloyd Garrison, and Harriet Tubman were all in attendance.
The Boston Music Hall Organ, installed in 1862, was the first concert pipe organ installed in the United States. It was commissioned in 1857 and built in Germany by E.F. Walcker and Company of Ludwigsburg. It was the largest in the US at the time, containing 5,474 pipes and 84 registers.
The organ was removed from the Music Hall in 1884 to provide more performing space for the Boston Symphony. Initially put into storage, the organ was rebuilt and installed by the Methuen Organ Company in the Serlo Organ Hall in Methuen, Massachusetts, which was built to house the organ. The organ was later rebuilt again and augmented by the Aeolian-Skinner Organ Company. Today the hall is known as the Methuen Memorial Music Hall and concerts are regularly presented on the organ, still considered one of the leading instruments in the US.
When the Boston Symphony moved to Symphony Hall in 1900, the Boston Music Hall closed. It was converted for use as a vaudeville theater in 1900 and operated under a number of different names, including the Music Hall and the Empire Theatre. In 1906 it was renamed the Orpheum Theatre. In 1915 the theater was acquired by the Loew's Theatres chain snd reopened again in 1916 with a completely new interior designed by architect Thomas W. Lamb. The current entrance to the theater is the former alley entrance, replacing the original entrance on Washington Street which was converted into retail space.
Operated by Loew's, the theater was first a combination vaudeville and movie theater then a straight first-run movie house until closing in the late 1960s. Since the 1970s it has functioned as a multi-use music venue. From 1975 to 1979 the Orpheum served as the home of the Opera Company of Boston under director Sarah Caldwell until that company moved to the current Boston Opera House.
Some of the acts that have played at the theater include the Grateful Dead in 1971, 1972, 1973, 1976, and 1978; Pink Floyd in 1973 on their Dark Side of the Moon tour; Kiss on their Alive! Tour in 1975; Queen on their A Night At The Opera Tour in 1976; Bruce Springsteen on a Born to Run tour in 1977; U2 on their War Tour in 1983 (in a show that was recorded and broadcast on the King Biscuit Flower Hour); Tangerine Dream in 1986 on their Underwater Sunlight North American Tour; Warren Zevon on his Sentimental Hygiene tour in 1987; The Smashing Pumpkins in 1998 on their Adore Tour and in 2007 on their Zeitgeist Tour; Counting Crows in 1999; Trey Anastasio in 2001, and Scissor Sisters in 2006 on the closing night of their U.S. tour. The Police (band) recorded the first half of their Live album at the Orpheum as well.
Currently the theater is owned by the Drucker Realty Company. The contract to operate the Orpheum was acquired by Don Law, a Boston concert promoter, from the Live Nation entertainment company in 2009. Law has announced a major renovation for the theater, after which it is scheduled to reopen in late 2009.