ABSTRACT

The theatrical experience begins long before any curtain rises. It begins with the participatory performance along the trajectory from the street to the performance space entry. Two performance buildings by Ateliers Jean Nouvel the Opera de Lyon and the Danish Radio Concert Hall, in Copenhagen is unpacked to reveal how the design of their pre-performance spaces heighten the theater-goer's experience, visually, viscerally and haptically, to turn the tables, casting theatre-goers as performers, empowering them to create their own heightened theatrical experience independent of the planned event and its space. Jean Nouvel's Opera de Lyon consists of a new horseshoe opera house suspended within the shell of an existing neoclassical structure. The importance of the social theatre played out in the pre-performance space and time of Garnier's grand stair is well recognized. In the theatre of the grand stair all participated at some point; in the opera house no one crossed the threshold from spectator to participant.