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Sound effects: After years of planning, the Hylton Performing Arts Center could contend for best performing arts venue in the region.
Class act: Hylton Performing Arts Center opens this week.
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BY RYAN MARR
FROM THE SYDNEY Opera House to Carnegie Hall, great concert halls are more than just a place to house the performing arts--they're also iconic symbols of regional cultural progress.
This weekend, Prince William County will commemorate its own brand of cultural progress with the grand opening of the Hylton Performing Arts Center--a nine-story, $46 million architectural wonder that is destined to represent the region's performing arts scene for many years to come.
Towering over George Mason University's Prince William campus, the Hylton is just as dazzling from the highway as it is from the inside, boasting a 67-foot copper leaf mural, a three-story sweeping staircase in the main foyer, and a large proscenium theater modeled after 19th-century European opera houses.
But, according to Executive Director Jean Kellogg, the Hylton is more than just architectural eye-candy.
"Our goal was to build a space that was just as suitable for a first-time performer as a professional," Kellogg said. "It's a beautiful reflection of the community."
The act of funding the Hylton's hefty price tag was a fairly accurate reflection of the community as well, with Prince William County, the city of Manassas, the commonwealth of Virginia, George Mason University, and local individuals and corporations in the private sector all chipping in to foot the bill.
Citing the success of the similarly-funded Freedom Aquatic and Fitness Center--also located on GMU's Prince William campus--as a significant factor in the community's decision to build a state-of-the-art performance facility, Kellogg hopes that the Hylton's success will usher in the development of an arts and entertainment district in the area.
University officials are anxious to welcome Fredericksburg-area residents.
HALL OF WONDERS
Merchant Hall, the Hylton's majestic centerpiece, is likely to be the greatest draw for not only regional development, but audiences as well, boasting a 1.9-second acoustical reverberation time equivalent to Carnegie Hall, 27 private boxes, and three levels of plush seating that rise straight up, rather than outward.
The hall's awe-inspiring blend of an exposed pragmatic concrete with an ornate copper finish that decorates the ceiling creates a distinctive feel that audience members aren't likely soon to forget.
"We tried to blend the old world with the new to create something both elegant and inviting," Kellogg said.
Beyond just providing a grand space for the professional arts, the Hylton is also catering to the community with the Gregory Family Theater--a 300-seat, flexible black-box performance space that can host everything from cabaret to lectures to dinner banquets.
This combination of professionalism and accessibility has been something the architectural firms Holzman Moss Bottino and Hughes Group Architects have had in mind since they began working on the project in 2001.
For architect Douglas Moss, who has had a hand in designing more than 160 concert halls around the country, maintaining the intimacy in a 1,200-seat professional concert hall was the greatest challenge in designing the building.
By constructing three concrete stories to break up and reflect the sound, Moss was able to maintain the acoustics expected in a state-of-the-art performance facility without sacrificing any of the community's desired intimacy.
"I think it is going to be the most intimate 1,200-seat auditorium in the country," Moss told Weekender. "Any member of the audience can feel as if they can reach out and touch the stage."
Not surprisingly, local performing arts groups are particularly enthusiastic about the Hylton's grand opening--and the effect it will have on the performing arts in the region.
James Villani, music director of the NOVA Manassas Symphony Orchestra, is looking forward to unifying the region's various performance groups--most of which currently perform at various schools and churches--under one roof.
"We've been scattered all over the place," Villani said. "Now that we're all in one centralized place with one schedule of events, people might become aware of groups they never knew existed."
On Sunday, visitors will have the opportunity to familiarize themselves with a wide variety of new groups, when the Hylton hosts a slew of regional acts including the Manassas Ballet Theatre, the NOVA Manassas Symphony Orchestra, and the Woodbridge Flute Choir.
For the Manassas Ballet Theatre, which is the second largest professional ballet in Virginia, the Hylton represents an opportunity to expand its audience and finally perform in a setting equivalent to the group's talent.
"Until you have a professional theater to perform in, you don't feel like a professional," Amy Grant Wolfe, the ballet's artistic director, said. "We have been looking forward to this for a long time."
Wolfe's dancers, who have spent nearly the past three decades of the ballet's existence pirouetting on the concrete floors of area schools, are also particularly excited about performing on the Hylton's accommodatingly spacious stage.
"The community will be forever changed by this," Wolfe said. "We'll look back on this as an important landmark of growth for the entire area."
