06/16/2026
Those seats look familiar don’t they?😉
Raleigh Little Theatre
HIDDEN OPERA THEATER BENEATH WRAL NEWS STATION: Did you know the remains of an old opera theater are still hidden inside the modern day news station at WRAL?
When I worked in the building, I’d been told legends that one of the underground hallways and stairwells was actually part of the theater - and that the remains of the theater itself was behind a closet door.
So of course I went hunting!
But first - why is there an underground opera theater hidden inside WRAL?
A.J. Fletcher, founder of Capitol Broadcasting, was deeply passionate about bringing opera to North Carolina’s education system. Many folks who grew up in the area may even remember school field trips to the opera house.
He started the Grass Roots Opera Company in 1948, and it eventually became the National Opera Company.
He had an opera theater built adjacent to the WRAL studio building. In the 1980s, the auditorium space became home to the anchor desks. In recent years, the space has been filled in as administrative offices.
Exploring inside the building, my colleagues and I discovered a long underground corridor that has a noticeable slope. I was told by long-time employees that this sloped hallway was once the entryway to the opera theater, where guests would wait for tickets and then walk down the aisle into the theater.
One of the locked doors along the corridor, he said, is a storage closet today. But if you go inside, and walk deep to the back of the closet, you’ll see the back of the orchestra pit and a little of the old carpet.
Lucky us - one slow Saturday, I found a security guard who was happy to show us the closet. Sure enough… a little piece of A.J. Fletcher’s lost opera theater was hidden inside!
(Pictured here is the theater before it was mostly destroyed. Only a tiny bit remains in the closet and nearby underground hallway)
