New concert halls in the U.S. have tended to be either lavishly restored movie $ palaces, such as Powell Hall in St. Louis and the Paramount Theater in Oakland, or gleaming, high-tech edifices like Davies Hall in San Francisco and Meyerhoff Hall in Baltimore. Last week in St. Paul, Architect Benjamin Thompson, the designer of Boston's Faneuil Hall Marketplace, unveiled a stunning combination: the Ordway Music Theater, a $45 million jewel overlooking the Mississippi that is one of the handsomest public spaces for music in America.
Opening with the American premiere of Swedish Composer Lars Johan Werle's opera Animalen, among other...