Alte Oper


The original opera house in Frankfurt is now the Alte Oper, a concert hall and former opera house in Frankfurt am Main, Germany. It was inaugurated in 1880 but destroyed by bombs in 1944. It was rebuilt, slowly, in the 1970s, opening again in 1981. Many important operas were performed for the first time in Frankfurt, including Carl Orff's Carmina Burana in 1937.
The square in front of the building is known as Opernplatz. The Alte Oper is located in the inner city district, Innenstadt, within the banking district Bankenviertel.
The Oper Frankfurt now plays in the Opern- und Schauspielhaus Frankfurt, completed in 1951, which it shares with the Schauspiel Frankfurt theatre company.

Inauguration

The building was designed by the Berlin architect Richard Lucae, financed by the citizens of Frankfurt and built by Philipp Holzmann. Construction began in 1873. It opened on October 20, 1880. Among the guests was Kaiser Wilhelm I of Germany, who was impressed and said: Das könnte ich mir in Berlin nicht erlauben.
The citizens of Frankfurt, who had to finance the structure, were rather sceptical at first. Alluding to the inscription on the frieze
The folkloristic Frankfurt poet Adolf Stoltze wrote, in his best Hessian dialect:

Post WWII

The Alte Oper was extensively damaged by bombing raids during World War II in 1944, though many of the outside walls and façades survived. In the 1960s the city magistrate planned to build a modern office building on the site. The then Minister of Economy in Hessen Rudi Arndt, earned the nickname "Dynamit-Rudi" when he proposed to blow up "Germany's most beautiful ruin" with "a little dynamite". Arndt later said that this was not meant seriously.
A citizen's initiative campaigned for reconstruction funds after 1953 and collected 15 million DM. It ended costing c. DM160, and the building was reopened on August 28, 1981, to the sounds of Gustav Mahler's Symphony No. 8, the "Symphony of a Thousand". A live recording of that concert conducted by Michael Gielen is available on CD.
The Alte Oper has: