On one such October night in 1881, something happened inside a new building close to the ruins of Savoy Palace that most people in the audience couldn’t quite put into words. The Strand was bustling with carriages; the cold was edging in off the Thames. The lights turned on. Not candles guttering behind glass, not gas. Electric illumination. Bright, clean, a little shocking. Nobody was quite sure how to interpret it.
Looking back, it would be easy to dismiss the Savoy Theatre’s opening night as merely a technical detail. The world’s first all-electric public building. Sure, impressive, but that’s hardly the point. That was precisely the point. Richard D’Oyly Carte’s obsession with engineering prevented him from installing 1,200 Swan incandescent lamps.
He did this because gas burners were using up oxygen more quickly than the audience could breathe: “each gas-burner consumes as much oxygen as many people”, he said at the time, and he was attempting to construct a theater where people would want to spend two hours inside. In a sense, the electricity was a gesture of hospitality.
Early in 1880, Carte paid £11,000 for the freehold of the site, which was then known as Beaufort Buildings. The chaos that ensued would have likely broken a less determined man. Midway through the project, his first architect increased his estimate from £12,000 to £18,000; Carte fired him and lost the lawsuit.
He complained to “The Times” about being caught in “the meshes of red tape” while city officials promised to open a new street on the south side of the plot, took his money, then stalled for months. While the electrical work was being completed, the planned opening date had to be repeatedly postponed. Even the site had an air of atmosphere because it was near a scent factory and, according to accounts from the time, Burgess’s Noted Fish-Sauce Shop.
The theater that resulted from all of this was truly unique. A “perfect view of the stage can be had from every seat in the house” was reported by “The Times” due to C. J. Phipps’ design, which included exits on all four sides and fireproof materials throughout sightlines.
The cherubs and mythological clutter that crowded rival theaters were purposefully avoided in favor of a white, pale yellow gold interior with red boxes and dark blue seats. Carte desired a tasteful product for his middle-class audience. In this way, even before the curtain rose, he was already reflecting on the experience.
The innovations kept coming because they became so commonplace, some of them now seem almost unremarkable. Seating with numbers. Program booklets are free. An American-inspired pit and gallery queuing system. A policy prohibiting tipping coatroom employees. The bars have good whiskey. These seemingly insignificant gestures added up to a theater that valued the patrons who had paid to attend. Gilbert and Sullivan’s comedic operas might have felt so at home in the Savoy, which is perhaps why it drew the crowds it did.
The Savoy gave its name to the entire body of work, including “Iolanthe”, “The Mikado”, “The Yeomen of the Guard”, and “The Gondoliers”, eight of their last collaborations. Due to the building’s earned gravity, the “Savoy operas” became a cultural category.
It was more than a practical joke when Carte took the stage in December 1881 to demonstrate electrical safety by snapping a glowing lightbulb in front of the audience. It was the performance of a showman who recognized that before people could enjoy what took place there, they had to have faith in the establishment.
The theater underwent a complete interior renovation in 1929; the ceiling was painted to resemble an April sky the wall colors were allegedly inspired by a bed of zinnias in Hyde Park. In 1990, a devastating fire destroyed everything save the stage and backstage areas.
It reopened in 1993 with a royal gala and a specially commissioned ballet after being meticulously restored to the 1929 design. By then, Oscar Wilde’s “Salome”, Noël Coward’s “Blithe Spirit”, the Royal Shakespeare Company, and Garry Kasparov’s World Chess Championship had all taken place at the Savoy. Not the usual CV of a theater that was first constructed for comedic opera.
It is difficult to condense the Savoy’s actual changes into a single assertion. A building that determined that its audience mattered, that the air they breathed mattered, that being able to see the stage from every seat mattered that theater could be contemporary without being chilly is more akin to a long chain of consequences.
Other theaters had more ambitious goals. Fewer of them inquired about the actual needs of the person seated in row G. The stages that followed are still being shaped by that question, which was asked in 1881 and answered in light.
FAQs
1. Why did the Savoy Theatre switch from gas to electric lighting?
Gas burners depleted oxygen, making the air uncomfortable for audiences inside.
2. What was unusual about the Savoy Theatre’s interior design?
It favored clean whites and pale gold over the ornate clutter common in rival theaters.
3. What everyday theater conveniences did the Savoy introduce?
Numbered seats, free programs, and a no-tipping policy for coatroom staff.
4. How did the Savoy Theatre earn its name as a cultural category?
Eight Gilbert and Sullivan operas premiered there, becoming known collectively as the “Savoy operas.”
5. What happened to the Savoy Theatre in 1990?
A fire gutted it, sparing only the stage and backstage areas.