Photo by Rick Davis A view of the Fredonia Opera House’s new seats Monday morning.

The Fredonia Opera House has opened the curtain on its renovations.

It reopened Saturday with a taped performance of “Aida” from the “Live at the Met” series, after closing for about six weeks.

The most noticeable part of the renovations is the new, upholstered seats. Opera House Executive Director Rick Davis has said the old, wooden, narrow seats were a constant source of complaints from patrons.

“The people that were there on Saturday thought they were beautiful and very comfortable,” Davis said Monday. “We thought it was nice to have our butts be the first impressions in those seats,” he laughed.

He added that some opera house patrons, used to uncushioned chairs, brought cushions — but discovered that they no longer need them.

The old chairs were 15, 17 and 18 inches wide. Davis said about two-thirds of the chairs in the balcony were upholstered, but none were on the orchestra level. The new chairs range from 19 to 22 inches wide, and all are upholstered.

The balcony level was closed Saturday, but Davis declared it finished Monday morning, with workers completing final touches.

“We have some cleaning up to do upstairs, but everything’s done,” he said.

Workers had to remove all the old chairs and painstakingly fill in the bolt holes they left behind. Chautauqua Flooring sanded and buffed the floors at the end of January, and varnished them the first week of February. The new seats went in during the final three weeks of February.

A new curtain for the stage was also installed, by New Jersey company Rose Brand. It replaces a curtain that dated to the massive mid-1980s project which likely saved the opera house from demolition.

The Fredonia Opera House also announced over the weekend that it has received a $25,000 grant from the New York State Council on the Arts (NYSCA) as part of NYSCA’s effort to support the nonprofit arts and culture sector.

“We’re thrilled to receive this award,” Davis said. “The Opera House has been fortunate to receive an annual NYSCA grant award for nearly three decades now; and we’re honored to partner with NYSCA to fulfill our mission of presenting a variety of high quality performing arts programs at affordable prices year-round.”