DeGive's Opera House

DeGive Opera House building toward the end of its life, doing business as the Bijou Theater

DeGive's Opera House was Atlanta's main opera venue from 1871 until 1893.

There are varying accounts of its construction. The Atlanta History Center describes how Belgian consul Laurent DeGive purchased an unfinished building at the corner of Marietta and Forsyth and hired architect and civil engineer Max Corput to design the opera house.^[1]

Reed's History of Atlanta states that Atlanta's antebellum Masonic Hall was destroyed in a fire in May, 1866. The site stated to be at the corner of Marietta and Broad (not Forsyth), was then purchased, and the firm of Fay & Corput designed the new opera house which was dedicated on February 22, 1871.^[2]

The opera house was expanded in 1873-4 to accommodate over 2,000 people.^[3]

In 1893, DeGive opened the new, larger DeGive's Grand Opera House, which would later become Loew's Grand Theatre, at Peachtree and Forsyth. The original DeGive's Opera House was later occupied by the Columbia Theater and later by the Bijou Theater. The building was demolished in 1921 to make way for the construction of the Palmer Building.

References

1. ^ "DeGive's Opera House", Atlanta History Center
2. ^ Wallace Putam Reed, History of Atlanta, Georgia: with illustrations and biographical sketches of some of its prominent men and pioneers, p.568
3. ^ "max corput"&brand=atlnewspapers-brand "Our Opera House", Atlanta Sunday Herald, Sep. 14, 1873, p. 11

External links

• "DeGive's Opera House", Atlanta History Center

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