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RALEIGH — Raleigh's new $40 million performing arts venue opened Tuesday night.
The BTI Center for the Performing Arts was dedicated in an evening of fireworks, barbershop quartets, tapdancers and champagne.
The complex includes the 600-seat A.J. Fletcher Opera Theater, the Kennedy Theater and the huge Meymandi Concert Hall, which seats 1,700 people. The Meymandi Hall is specially designed to enhance live musical performances.
"I'm looking forward to hearing the way good music should really sound," says Don Eagle of the N.C. Symphony, whose Wednesday night performance will be the first public event in the new center.
Several nights this year, three or four different performances will take place simultaneously in the building.
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