Thanks for the nice anecdote DorothyD!

Yes from the outside it does not look like an Opera House [[especially the Madison side). From the Broadway side, the cream colored terra cotta Corinthian columns give you just a hint of an opera house. But once you go thru the Broadway [[Ford) entrance lobby, your are no longer a disbeliever... the magnificent stained glass vaulted ceiling, "marble" columns and classic details prepares you for Detroit's grandest theatre foyer in Detroit beyond. The mezzanine bridge over the 3 story vaulted Grand Foyer was a feature that C. Howard Crane used on other theatres he designed... especially when they were built on a difficult site, like the Capitol Theatre was in 1922.

The 6 story auditorium houses the secret to the wonderful acoustics of the space... the magnificent geometric sounding board over the procenium arch above the stage.

Because the theatre is so very wide, few good images of the stage area are known online. The best one I have [[a 1998 MOT owned image from their then spring opera guide) shows the procenium and sounding board above it, but does not show the massive organ grilles on either side of the stage. One would need a wide lense camera I would suppose...
http://www.flickr.com/photos/istokg/...57626093396465

It is this beautiful sounding board [[patterned after a ceiling in Italy's Villa Modema) that gives the DOH its' wonderful acoustics, by throwing the sound to the farthest reaches of the auditorium.