Boston Opera House Reopens This Week After $38 Million Restoration

Boston’s Opera House will reopen its doors on July 16 following a $38 million restoration. Disney’s The Lion King, which begins preview at the Opera House that evening and will open officially on July 21, is the first live production there since December 1990.

The 2,600-seat theater was designed in 1928 by Thomas White Lab. It was constructed as a memorial to B.F. Keith, the “father of vaudeville,” by his business partner, Edward Franklin Albee (grandfather of the famed playwright). The Opera House was originally a home for vaudeville but became a movie house in 1929. Renamed the Savoy in the 1960s, it continued to function as a movie house until 1978, when it was acquired by The Opera Company of Boston.

The restoration, a project of Broadway in Boston/Clear Channel Entertainment, began in 2002. For more information, visit www.broadwayinboston.com.