Staatsoper Unter den Linden
Frederick the Great commissioned the house from Georg Wenzeslaus von Knobelsdorff, and the king was so impatient that it opened on 7 December 1742 with the building still unfinished. Conceived as part of the planned Forum Fridericianum, it was one of Europe's first freestanding court opera theatres. Fire gutted it in 1843, and Carl Ferdinand Langhans rebuilt it. Bombs destroyed it twice in the Second World War before Richard Paulick restored Knobelsdorff's design for the 1955 reopening. After a seven-year overhaul that raised the roof to improve the acoustics, the house returned to service on 3 October 2017.
Die Zauberflöte runs deep here. In 1816 Karl Friedrich Schinkel created his celebrated stage sets for the opera in this house, including the star-strewn dome for the Queen of the Night that remains an icon of theatre design. When the renovated building reopened in 1928, it chose a new Zauberflöte for the occasion, and August Everding's 1994 staging, built around Schinkel's images, is still in the repertoire.
architect: Georg Wenzeslaus von Knobelsdorff
On stage here
12 dates
Performance dates
Video
How to sing: Die Königin der Nacht
Data: open sources (opera houses, ticketing platforms, Wikidata). Part of the worldwide Die Zauberflöte map.