The opera house planned for Leicester Square was never built. The venture, consisting of an impressive theatre to serve as London's major centre for Italian opera and ballet, was pursued by a group of patrons with the young law clerk Robert Bray O'Reilly as their figurehead. Despite securing funding for their new theatre, however, the group failed to receive the requisite Royal Opera Patent from His Majesty and the venture to secure London's opera monopoly was dropped in April 1790. The King's Theatre at Haymarket, former seat of the royal opera company, burned down in June 1789 and the patrons of the Leicester Square project, which included the Prince of Wales, seized this opportunity to replace the poorly run and mismanaged King's Theatre with an impressive new opera house on the former grounds of Leicester House. The proprietor of the King's Theatre, William Taylor, refused to relinquish the opera monopoly so easily, however, launching a publicity campaign against his competitors and eventually managing to rebuild his theatre. The Leicester Square investors moved on to the Pantheon Opera at Oxford Street, successfully receiving the Royal Opera Patent in June 1790.

Soane first met with O'Reilly on 18 December 1789. On the first of January he breakfasted with O'Reilly before surveying the proposed grounds at Leicester Square (Journal N^o 1). An article in the London Chronicle was published in the 9-12 January 1790 issue, describing the intended designs for the new opera house, stating: 'The designs are Mr Reilly's. The operative architect he employs, is another of our countrymen, Mr Soame (sic)' (The London Chronicle, 5–7 January 1790). O'Reilly paid a down payment of £8,000 on the site on 18 January 1790. That same day Soane called on him. The building was initially estimated to cost £150,000 total. A drawing in the Soane Museum shows a less costly variant design, probably made in February or March. More important than estimates, however, was the Royal Opera Patent. From January to April O'Reilly and Soane waited for the patent. On 1 February 1790 Soane and O'Reilly went over Soane's plans for three hours. From 15 to 22 February Soane's entire office worked on plans for the theatre. On 14 April 1790 Lord Chancellor Thurlow heard arguments for and against the Opera Patent for the proposed theatre and on 26 April the patent was refused.

The Leicester Square scheme was immediately dropped after the April hearing, but Soane's involvements with London's opera houses continued for the rest of the year. The investors of the Leicester Square scheme, including O'Reilly, moved onto the Pantheon at Oxford Street, built by James Wyatt, and received an Opera Patent for this theatre on 30 June 1790. Soane probably assisted O'Reilly in securing the patent for the Pantheon, as he records in May 1790 that he was 'reading over lease, making extracts' for O'Reilly, and discussing the Haymarket Theatre with him (referred to as the 'old opera house' in Soane's Journal entries).

After the Pantheon was secured, O'Reilly made an arrangement 'with Taylor stipulating that six surveyors, three from each house, would survey the Haymarket and Pantheon to allay public fears of jerry-building due to the speed of building both theatres' (The Georgian Playhouse, cat. 267). Soane was either one of the six surveyors or he acted as an arbitrator, for journal entries record his constant involvement with the proceedings for their duration, from July 1790 until January 1791, when O'Reilly pulled out of the agreement. Soane surveyed the King's Theatre at Haymarket throughout July and in September he was joined at the building by James Wyatt, architect to the Pantheon. Wyatt and Soane met at Gray's Inn Coffee house the next day (‘expences 4/6’). In October, Soane's office made drawings of the King's Theatre overlaid with the outline of a new theatre, delivering copies to Mr Sheldon and Mr Withams (unidentified persons). Soane met with O'Reilly for two hours on 6 November 1790 and a pupil delivered to O'Reilly plans for the King's Theatre as designed by Michael Novoskielski (architect to the King's Theatre). Soane's involvement at this stage is unclear. In November his office made fair drawings of the King's Theatre for presentation to Witham, Sheldon and a Mr Harrison. It is unclear whether these fair drawings were of a proposed design by Soane, or copies of Novoskielski's designs.

Drawings exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1810 include two both entitled 'Design for the Opera House proposed to be built on the site of Leicester House garden', 710 and 716. The drawings are in the same frame as a perspective view of the Royal Theatre at Covent Garden, built in 1809 by Robert Smirke. The drawings no doubt served to juxtapose Soane's own design with the work of his former pupil, which he had publicly shown disapproval towards in his fourth Royal Academy lecture earlier that year, given on 29 January 1810. Nonetheless, Smirke was elected to the Royal Academy in 1811.

Drawings of the King's Theatre, Haymarket are in the Soane Museum collection; see SM 65/1/1, SM 65/1/2, SM 65/1/3, SM 65/1/4, SM 65/1/5, SM 65/1/6, SM 65/1/7, SM 65/1/8 and SM 65/1/9. These include a drawing probably made by Michael Novoskielski, architect and painter, who served as the King's Theatre architect from 1782 to 93, making alterations to Vanbrugh's original building from 1782 to 1789 and re-erecting the entire theatre after the fire of June 1789.

Literature: Survey of London, vol.s XXIX and XXX, pp. 223-250; Survey of London, vol. XXXIV, 1960, pp. 455-464; The Georgian Playhouse: actors, artists, audiences and architecture 1730-1830' exhibition catalogue for the Hayward Gallery, 1975; Curtis Price, Judith Milhous and Robert D. Hume, 'A Royal Opera House in Leicester Square', Cambridge Opera Journal, vol. 2, no. 1, March 1990, pp. 1-28; D. Watkin, Sir John Soane; Enlightenment Thought and the Royal Academy Lectures, University of Cambridge, 1996, pp. 72-73; L. Kinney, 'John Soane and property disputes: The Argyle Rooms & All Souls College, Oxford, two case studies', Architectural History, vol. 41, 1998, pp. 131-144.

Madeleine Helmer, January 2012

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