Alte Oper (Old Opera) is a concert hall in Frankfurt am Main, Hesse, Germany. It is located in the inner city, Innenstadt, within the banking district Bankenviertel. Today's Alte Oper was built in 1880 as the city's opera house, which was destroyed by bombs in 1944.[6] It was rebuilt in the 1970s as a concert hall with a large hall and smaller venues, opened in 1981. The square in front of the building is still known as Opernplatz (Opera Square).
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.[7] It opened on 20 October 1880.[8] Among the guests was KaiserWilhelm I of Germany, who was impressed and said: Das könnte ich mir in Berlin nicht erlauben. (I couldn't permit myself this sort of thing in Berlin.)[9] The opening was also celebrated by Mozart's Don Giovanni.[10]
The costs increased from the originally planned 2 million marks to a multiple.[11] Alluding to the inscription on the frieze
"Dem Wahren, Schönen, Guten", ("To the true, the beautiful, the good")
Dem Wahre, Scheene, Gute, die Berjerschaft muß blude. (To the true, the beautiful, the good, the citizens must bleed.)[12]
Concert Hall
The opera house 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" (Dynamite Rudi) when he proposed to blow up "Germany's most beautiful ruin" with "a little dynamite".[13] Arndt later saved the Alte Oper.[14]
A citizen's initiative campaigned for reconstruction funds after 1953 and collected 15 million DM. It ended costing c. 160 million DM, and the building was reopened on 28 August 1981 to the sounds of Gustav Mahler's Symphony No. 8, the "Symphony of a Thousand".[15][4] A live recording of that concert conducted by Michael Gielen is available on CD.[16][17]
^Klein, Michael; Gerlinger, Lutz. "Objekte L". kunst-im-oeffentlichen-raum-frankfurt.de (in German). Archived from the original on 17 December 2022. Retrieved 17 December 2022.
^Hartmann, Andreas (23 August 2021). "Überall funkelte es golden". Frankfurter Rundschau (in German). Archived from the original on 17 December 2022. Retrieved 17 December 2022.
^"Chronik und Historie". www.alteoper.de (in German). Alte Oper Frankfurt Konzert- und Kongresszentrum GmbH. 21 December 2009. Archived from the original on 22 February 2014. Retrieved 5 February 2014.
^"Alte Oper". Frankfurt-Lese (in German). 3 April 2017. Archived from the original on 19 August 2024. Retrieved 14 August 2022.
^Helmensdorfer, Erich (1982). Frankfurt – Metropole am Main: Geschichte und Zukunft (in German). Düsseldorf, Vienna: Econ-Verlag. p. 234. ISBN978-3-430-14261-8.
^"Eröffnungskonzert". Alte Oper Frankfurt (in German). Archived from the original on 19 August 2024. Retrieved 14 August 2022.
^Symphony no. 8 "Symphony of a thousand"; "Symphonie der Tausend", Sony, 1992, OCLC916400443
^Symphonie no. 8 Symphonie der Tausend; Live-Mitschnitt d. Konzerts zur Wiedereröffnung d. Alten Oper Frankfurt vom 28. August 1981 (in German), 1981, OCLC725794459
Sources
Groß, Lothar (2012). Made in Germany: Deutschlands Wirtschaftsgeschichte von der Industralisierung bis heute Band 1: 1800 – 1945. Books on demand. ISBN978-3-8482-1042-8.
