ArtsWatch

The Academy of Music Tuesday afternoon as workers remove one of five windows fronting onto Broad Street.

Work began this week on a major restoration of the Academy of Music ballroom that will strip off renovations made in the 1920s and 1957, returning to the room the major features of its original 1857 appearance.
The project includes: replicating the original 10 crystal and two bronze chandeliers; reproducing decorative painting on ceilings and walls; and, in the biggest change to the room, restoring natural light by removing the mirrored structures covering five windows facing onto Broad Street and replacing them with clear glass.
The window structures had been filled in to help seal off the room from outside sounds. Academy interior designer John Trosino thought the original wood structures with stained-glass fanlight transom windows might still be encased within the walls - and they were.
Workers removed one of the windows this week, revealing wood casings inside, and, at the top, the original stained glass. Trosino hopes the woodwork can be saved. The stained-glass fanlights - the one I saw had a design of two instruments, perhaps clarinets - are to be restored.
When the project is finished in July 2009, those tall five windows on the east side of the 40- x 80-foot room will let natural light in - the current pea-soup fluorescent lighting will be gone - and the five corresponding now-mirrored doors on the west side of the room will have been replaced with wooden doors.
The entire scheme of the project - for which Leonore Annenberg has given $5.3 million - is taking its cue from an 1860 photograph of the room found in the Academy's archive.
The project includes less glamorous work. The original timber frames over the ballroom will be reinforced, and the front third of the Academy roof will be replaced.
After this week's work, the ballroom will be operational for a couple of more months before closing for the 12-month project in July.
While the new Broad Street windows will replicate the original glass-panel doors at the bottom, and will constructed so they can open, Trosino thinks allowing people out onto the balconies might be impractical. The balustrade is quite low.
"It wouldn't take more than a little slip to fall over," he said.