page_title: Grand Theatre, Warsaw
section_title: Completion of façade
hierarchical_section_title: Grand Theatre, Warsaw / History / Completion of façade
caption_attribution_description: Warszawa (Polska)
context_page_description: The Grand Theatre in Warsaw, known in full as the Great Theatre—National Opera, is a theatre and opera complex situated on the historic Theatre Square in central Warsaw, Poland. The Warsaw Grand Theatre is home to the Polish National Ballet and is one of the largest theatrical venues in the world, with a seating capacity of over 2,000.
  The Warsaw Grand Theatre was inaugurated on 24 February 1833 with a production of Rossini's The Barber of Seville. After the building's bombing and near-complete destruction in World War II, it was rebuilt and reopened on 19 November 1965 after having been closed for over twenty years. The original building was designed in a neoclassical style by architects Antonio Corazzi and Chrystian Piotr Aigner, and later restored by Bohdan Pniewski.
context_section_description: According to Antonio Corazzi's 1825 plans, the Grand Theatre's front façade was meant to feature a triumphal sculpture of Apollo, patron of the arts, driving a chariot drawn by four horses. However, the defeat of the November Uprising caused the idea to be abandoned.  The platform above the main entrance meant for the quadriga remained empty for nearly 200 years.
  Finally, in 2002, at the initiative of the Grand Theatre's then-general director, Waldemar Dąbrowski, the sculpture that had been envisioned many years earlier came to adorn the façade. The new, contemporary quadriga was designed by professors at the Warsaw Academy of Fine Arts, the rector, Adam Myjak, and the dean of the sculpture department, Antoni Janusz Pastwa. The sculpture was unveiled by Polish President Aleksander Kwaśniewski on May 3, 2002, to mark Constitution Day.
caption: Apollo's quadriga
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