After years of missteps and false starts, David Geffen Hall, the Lincoln Center home of the New York Philharmonic, finally reopened today after a $550 million renovation that aims to fix its longstanding acoustic woes and create a world-class hall that can entice new generations of concertgoers.
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The renovation hopes to end, once and for all, an acoustic curse that has plagued the hall since 1962, when it became the first theater at Lincoln Center to open. The auditorium has been gutted and totally rebuilt, removing 500 seats to create a more intimate experience and using rippling wood panels on the walls to diffuse the sound.
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The Philharmonic hopes the rebuilt hall will provide a burst of energy to help it recover from the coronavirus pandemic, when the 180-year-old orchestra canceled more than 100 concerts and lost $27 million in anticipated revenue. New York has yet to see tourism fully rebound, and attendance at many performing arts organizations has lagged. The reconfigured hall is seen as an opportunity to try to lure old concertgoers back, and to bring new audiences in.
