Arts & Entertainment
Opera House [Finally] Nears Completion of Updates
After funding dried up — and a 2010 flood soaked it — the Opera House in Newport looks to make a comeback.
More than a decade after the Newport Performing Arts Center bought the building to save it from the wrecking ball, the Opera House could finally reach the end of the long process to restore it.
Recently-acquired grant funding means the Arts Center can remove some of the detritus from an earlier renovation that turned the Opera House into a movie theater, according to RI NPR.
The theater, built in 1867 and former site of a variety of live shows before its conversion to a three-screen megaplex in 1979, has been closed since a flood in 2010.
Arts Center Board member Dominique Alfandre was quoted as saying that the group's goal is to have construction completed in 18 months, and formally reopen the theater in 2017, the 150th anniversary of its original opening.
Visitors could be allowed to see the building during the rehab process, Alfandre told the radio station.
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