Academy of Music
National Historic Landmark · Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
The oldest opera house in the United States still used for its original purpose, opened on Broad Street in 1857 and modelled closely on La Scala. The exterior is deliberately plain brick because the building committee ran out of money and decided to spend what remained on the inside, where a horseshoe of gilded tiers rises around a hall whose acoustics were achieved by digging a dry well beneath the floor and leaving the interior to season for a year before it opened. It is home to Opera Philadelphia and the Philadelphia Ballet, and it was the Philadelphia Orchestra's hall for a century.
240 South Broad Street, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, 19102, United States
A working theatre, open only for performances and occasional announced tours — there is no daily public access and the building is dark between shows. Performance season runs roughly September to May. Tickets through the Kimmel Cultural Campus box office and the resident companies.
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