Tabernacle reborn

Thousands of Latter-day Saints who entered the Salt Lake Tabernacle on Saturday afternoon for the second session of their 177th Annual General Conference sat on new oak benches, walked on new carpeting and used re-configured stairways to the balcony.

Those cosmetic alterations didn't change the historic look and feel of the Tabernacle, something LDS Church President Gordon B. Hinckley was adamant about before the seismic upgrade and retrofitting even began two years ago. Most of those in attendance sat on new ergonomically enhanced benches "as hard as the old ones," President Hinckley quipped, though a few of the original pews remain, most at the east end of the main hall.

Fewer pews means more legroom for today's patrons but room for an audience of only 3,456, compared to the 4,787 the building held before refurbishing began in January 2005.

The chandeliers were cleaned and rewired, the face of the organ pipes got a new layer of 23.5K gold leafing and carpeting on the rostrum area has been replaced with a replica of a pattern used in past years.

Yet the major changes in the building's configuration are hidden from public view, beneath the main floor, behind the huge pipe organ and inside the lattice-work ceiling.

During a media tour "backstage" on Friday, reporters saw the First Presidency lounge, as well as new offices, dressing rooms, a music library and state-of-the-art rehearsal hall/recording studios for the Mormon Tabernacle Choir and the Orchestra at Temple Square. The "green room," whose furnishings provided the name, replaces the old performer's lounge.

Gone are the former baptistry, as well as a narrow hallway from which engineers regularly monitored the functioning of the 19th-century pipe organ.

Presiding Bishop H. David Burton said the Tabernacle will play host to a wider variety of events and performances than in years past, thanks in part to a newly installed stage lift that allows the rostrum area to sink into the floor, providing an expansive staging area for orchestras or other performances.

The new configuration allows three different "sets" for the building: one capable of hosting general conference there at some point in the future if the First Presidency wishes; a multistake conference setup capable of hosting either a single stake or more than one simultaneously; and the "performance stage" set where rostrum furnishings are stored the rostrum disappears into the floor, much like it does in the Conference Center.

Bishop Burton said the choir will use the Tabernacle for its weekly Sunday broadcast "most of the year" but will likely perform in the Conference Center during the summer tourist season to accommodate all the visitors who wish to attend.