READ HUGH HARDY’S TIMES OBITUARY
Glimmerglass Staff Reflects
On Opera Theater Architect
COOPERSTOWN – At 7:30 p.m. Wednesday, The Glimmerglass Festival staff dimmed the stagelights and shared memories of Hugh Hardy, the architect of the Alice Bush Opera Theater who died Thursday, March 16.
Built in 1987, Hardy’s design, with its sliding side walls, capitalized on the rural surroundings while providing audiences the chance to experience opera and musical theater locally. He served as an adviser to the company for 35 years, including 13 as a member of the Board of Trustees.
Meanwhile, the festival’s leadership issued statements of praise on Hardy’s passing.
Francesca Zambello, artistic & general director, said Hardy “revolutionized theater design” in the latter part of the 20th century. “He was our modern-day Andrea Palladio, melding culture and nature in ideally scaled and beautiful performance spaces. He brought theater back to a human scale, and our jewel of a theater on Otsego Lake is a prime example of that. We are proud to be part of his legacy.”
Sherwin Goldman, Board of Trustees chairman, said , “Aside from former Artistic Director Paul Kellogg, I can think of no one who has been more essential to the development of what we now cherish. As Glimmerglass.”
“He was always supportive, positive, loyal, imaginative and optimistic,” said Kellogg.. “He was incomparable.”
Hardy’s opera theater design drew on the agrarian architecture of Central New York. “There are some wonderful hops barns around and agricultural structures, which are the big-scale buildings of that region, and it seemed to be only natural that we would do that,” Hardy said in a 2001 interview.
He was a founding partner of Hardy Holzman Pfeiffer Associates, which received more than 100 national design awards for its work. He went on to lead H3 Hardy Collaboration Architecture, a firm dedicated to the creation of active public spaces and a recognized leader in the planning and design of performing arts centers, theaters, museums and more.
Hardy’s projects have included the Joyce Theater, Claire Tow Theater at Lincoln Center Theater; several projects for the Brooklyn Academy of Music, the renovation of Radio City Music Hall, and the restoration of the New Victory and New Amsterdam theaters in New York.
