SUN VALLEY - For the past four months, 24 hours a day, seven days a week, 150 workers have toiled to raise Sun Valley Pavilion from a giant hole in the ground to a shining architectural phenomenon.

The Sun Valley Co. outdoor performance space will be the home of the Sun Valley Summer Symphony, but it will also host a variety of performing arts - opera, dance, pop, jazz, conferences and everything between.

"It's a state-of-the-art facility, and it will have state-of-the-art entertainment," said John Mauldin, director of entertainment for SVC. He plans to schedule performers who will attract audiences from across the state, including a Sun Valley Opera-sponsored performance by The Three Tenors, scheduled for July 2009. "Stay tuned for great things to come."

It's not surprising that groups as well-known as The Three Tenors are interested in performing at the pavilion, said SVC public relations director Jack Sibbach. "This whole building is almost like an eighth wonder of the world, the way they're building it," he said during a tour of the incomplete structure last week.

With nine days left until the Sunday opening, construction workers were still attaching stone to the walls, installing seat frames, laying pathways and rigging the elaborate lighting and baffling systems. It looked like a lot to finish, but Sibbach was confident that 90 percent of the construction would be complete in time, including all the spaces visible from the audience.

"It won't be finished, but it'll be usable," he said. "It's a three-year project that we're doing in less than a year."

No price for perfection

So what's the price tag on all this?

SVC, a private company, is not revealing exactly how much the project cost. Sun Valley Summer Symphony, which partnered with SVC to brainstorm and design the building, raised $3 million from symphony patrons in the past nine months.

"We got donations from zero to a quarter of a million dollars," said Jennifer Teisinger, executive director of the symphony. "For that 3 million the symphony will have three to four weeks in the pavilion in July and August forever."

And SVC's contribution? Sibbach said that once owner Earl Holding decided to go forward with the project, funding wasn't a concern.

"Mr. Holding has a saying: 'If it's worth doing, it's worth overdoing,'" Sibbach said. "He's probably exceeded his unlimited budget on this. ... I can guess it's at least nine times that 3 million."

One of the details that added to the price tag is the travertine marble facings across the exterior and part of the interior of the pavilion. The marble comes from the same quarry as that used to make the Colosseum in Rome, the J.Paul Getty Museum in Los Angeles and the Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts in New York.

Acoustics are developed primarily around the stage, which "floats" above a foot of empty space and is made of massaranduba Brazilian "iron" wood, and the baffling, which is covered in mahogany. Baffling panels line the walls of the stage, directing the sound out, and several frameworks that support light and sound equipment hang from the pavilion roof, also covered with mahogany baffles.

An unusual design

Two proscenium arches, which reach 50 feet and 70 feet, are set into the ground with 150 truckloads of concrete, forming the main structure of the pavilion. Between the arches is a net of interconnected cables that expand and contract with weather changes.

"There are huge structural loads involved, and there was a lot of movement in the cable net roof. We had to put a wood and copper roof on top of the cable net, and the cable net moves and deflects under loads. It's very unique," said Nicholas Latham, principal with architects Ruscitto/Latham/Blanton, which handled the day-to-day design of the structure. "It's an exciting piece of architecture. As far as we know, there's nothing like this anywhere in the world."

The pavilion appeared in a recent newsletter of ArchitectureWeek, Sibbach said, and he has fielded many calls from architects interested in touring the building.

"It's getting a lot of attention, and it deserves it,"Sibbach said.

The 'whole package'

Teisinger offers praise to Holding for taking the symphony's idea and running with it.

"Ultimately, Earl Holding embraced the idea, and he and Sun Valley Co. really see the value of having a performing arts structure like this in Sun Valley, not just for the symphony but for all performing arts and as an economic driver for this community," she said. "Name a thriving and well-known community that doesn't have an orchestra, an opera, a ballet."

The symphony will start thinking bigger now that it has this new performance space, Teisinger said. The Mormon Tabernacle Choir, which will headline the symphony's fundraising show on Aug. 9, wouldn't have fit in the tent the symphony used to perform in, she noted as an example. All the other symphony shows are free, and Teisinger said she appreciates SVC's support for public access to such high-caliber performances.

"We're offering a service, and we want that service that we're offering to be as fantastic as it possibly can be for the community," she said. "It is the enhanced visual and auditory experience for the orchestra on stage and the audience listening to the final product, it's that whole package."

With the free symphony performances and all the other acts that SVC will bring to the pavilion, Sun Valley is set to become one of the Mountain West's primary destinations for entertainment.

"The southern Idaho people are going to have, next year, more opportunities for world-class entertainment out their back door,"Sibbach said. "It's something for Idahoans to be proud of."

Ariel Hansen may be reached at ariel.hansen@lee.net or 208-735-3376.

Find more

Turn to pages 6 and 7 to learn about the Sun Valley Summer Symphony’s upcoming season, and the piece composed for the dedication of Sun Valley Pavilion. The pavilion will open Aug. 3.