Margravial Opera House
The Margravial Opera House () is a Baroque opera house in the town of Bayreuth, Germany, built between 1745 and 1750. It is one of Europe's few surviving theatres of the period and has been extensively restored. On 30 June 2012, the opera house was inscribed in the UNESCO World Heritage List. History. It was built according to plans designed by the French architect (ca. 1709 – 1754), court builder of the Hohenzollern margrave Frederick of Brandenburg-Bayreuth and his wife Princess Wilhelmine of Prussia. It was inaugurated on the occasion of the marriage of their daughter Elisabeth  Fredericka Sophie with Duke Charles Eugene of Württemberg. The wooden interior was designed by Giuseppe Galli Bibiena (1696 – 1757) and his son Carlo from Bologna in an Italian Late Baroque style. The box theatre is completely preserved in its original condition, except for the curtain which was taken by Napoleon's troops on their march to the 1812 Russian campaign. The prince box was seldom used by the art-minded margravial couple, who preferred a front-row seat. Princess Wilhelmine, older sister of the Prussian king Frederick the Great, had established the margravial theatre company in 1737. In the new  opera house she participated as a composer of opera works and "Singspiele", as well as an actor and director. Today she features in a sound-and-light presentation for tourists. After her death in 1758, performances ceased and the building went into disuse, one reason for its good conservation status. More than one hundred years later, the stage's great depth of attracted the composer Richard Wagner, who in 1872 chose Bayreuth as festival centre and had the "Festspielhaus" built north of the town. The foundation stone ceremony was held on 22 May, Wagner's birthday, and included a performance  of Beethoven's Symphony No. 9, directed by the maestro. Parts of the 1994 biopic "Farinelli" were filmed in the Opera House. The theatre was the site of the annual Bayreuther Osterfestival until 2009. Each September from the year 2000 to 2009, the theatre also hosted the Bayreuth Baroque festival, with performances of early operatic rarities. The 2009 festival included performances of Andrea Bernasconi's "festa teatrale", "L'Huomo", to a libretto by the Margravine Wilhelmine. The theatre closed between October 2012 for extensive refurbishment and redevelopment and reopened 12 April 2018.