orchestra pit

English

Orchestra pit in Minsk Opera and Ballet Theater

Alternative forms

• orchestra-pit

Noun

orchestra pit (plural orchestra pits)

1. (performing arts) A sunken area in front of a stage in which musicians, largely hidden from view, play music to accompany stage performances.
   • 1921, P. G. Wodehouse, chapter 14, in Jill the Reckless:

     On the stage of the Gotham gloom reigned. . . . Johnson Miller was pacing the gangway between the orchestra pit and the first row of the orchestra chairs.

   • 1939 December 18, “Music: Rachmaninoff”, in Time, retrieved 11 January 2018:

     Thirty-four years ago a gaunt young Russian with a crew haircut took over the job as chief conductor in the orchestra pit of Moscow's Imperial Grand Theatre.

   • 2016 October 29, Michael Cooper, Christopher Mele, “Powder Tossed at Metropolitan Opera May Have Been Human Ashes, Police Say”, in New York Times, retrieved 11 January 2018:

     An audience member at the Metropolitan Opera sprinkled a powdery substance — what the police said may have been the ashes of his mentor — into the orchestra pit during an intermission of a performance on Saturday, setting off a police investigation and the cancellation of the rest of that opera.

Synonyms

• orchestra stalls

Translations

sunken area in front of a stage

• Catalan: fossat d'orquestra m
• Czech: orchestřiště n
• Danish: orkestergrav (da) c
• Dutch: orkestbak (nl) m
• Esperanto: orkestrofosaĵo
• Finnish: orkesterisyvennys
• French: fosse d’orchestre (fr) f
• German: Orchestergraben (de) m
• Italian: golfo mistico (it) m, buca d'orchestra f, fossa d'orchestra f
• Latvian: orķestra bedre f
• Norwegian:

  Bokmål: orkestergrav m or f

  Nynorsk: orkestergrav f

• Polish: kanał dla orkiestry m, orkiestron (pl) m
• Russian: оркестровая яма (ru) f (orkestrovaja jama)
• Spanish: foso de orquesta m
• Swedish: orkesterdike (sv) n
• Ukrainian: оркестрова яма f (orkestrova jama)