Albert: It’s Hall about view...
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IT’S one of the world’s greatest music venues and today the Royal Albert Hall is marking its 150th anniversary.
Since its opening by Queen Victoria, it has welcomed many glittering stars, including Adele, The Who and Eric Clapton, and hosted the annual classical Proms concerts.
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But how much do you know about the iconic domed building? NADINE LINGE
has 10 noteperfect facts. 1 The original name was going
to be The Central Hall of Arts and Sciences until it was changed to honour Queen Victoria’s consort Prince Albert. He was a great lover of the arts.
The first concert, on March 29,
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1871, was plagued by a loud echo that bounded around the huge ceiling. Engineers tried in vain to fix it and it wasn’t until the 1960s that a solution was found – those mushroom-shaped diffusers that hang from the ceiling.
The roof was originally built
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and tested in Manchester. It was then taken apart, brought to London and painstakingly reassembled on top of the Hall.
The main organ weighs
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around 150 tonnes and has 9,999 pipes. There’s also a reservoir
under the floor providing 8,000 gallons of water for “flooded” performances, like Madam Butterfly.
As a Victorian building, it’s no 5
surprise the Hall has a few ghost stories. One involves the appearance of Sherlock Holmes creator Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (below) a month after his death, when the Spiritualist Association rented the place for a seance in front of 10,000 fans. Clairvoyant Estelle Roberts claimed he was there and passed on a message to his widow.
Other spectres 6
spotted at the Royal Albert Hall include two laughing girls, who appear on November 2, the organ’s original constructor Henry Willis, who returns as a stooped ghost wearing a black skull cap, a man wearing white, seen during a performance by Jasper Carrott, and a Victorian couple.
During World War Two, the
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Hall’s roof was used as a navigation point by pilots on both sides, which is why it was relatively undamaged. Pink Floyd were
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given a lifetime ban in 1969 after letting off a huge pink smoke bomb during their gig. They were back in 1970.
In 2006, David Gilmour
9 invited David Bowie on stage – the Starman’s final UK public performance. The first sumo tournament
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outside Japan was held here in 1991, with Konishiki, the heaviest wrestler of all time, at 37½ stone.