Alte Oper, Opera house and concert hall in Westend, Frankfurt, Germany
Alte Oper is a concert hall on Opernplatz in Frankfurt's Innenstadt, within the Bankenviertel. The building, designed by Richard Lucae in Neorenaissance style, has a light beige stone facade with a tiered structure, arched windows and doorways, a balustraded cornice, and a row of statues along the roofline. Above the entrance stands the inscription "DEM WAHREN SCHOENEN GUTEN". Inside, the Großer Saal seats 2500 and the Mozart-Saal 700.
The house opened in 1880 under Emperor Wilhelm I and was considered one of the grandest opera houses in Europe at that time. After the bombing raids of 1944 only the outer facade remained, with rebuilding following in the 1970s with a new interior design.
The frieze above the entrance reads "Dem Wahren, Schönen, Guten" in German, not Latin. The Frankfurt poet Adolf Stoltze mocked the rising costs in Hessian dialect: "Dem Wahre, Scheene, Gute, die Berjerschaft muß blude" — the citizens must bleed. The square in front is still called Opernplatz.
The Alte Oper stands on Opernplatz in the Innenstadt, at the edge of the Bankenviertel. The square in front of the building still carries the name it had when the house opened as an opera house. The Großer Saal holds 2500 seats and the Mozart-Saal 700; smaller halls serve conventions.
During the inauguration in 1880 Emperor Wilhelm I said that even Berlin could not afford such a splendid building. This statement turned the house into a symbol of the city's civic pride in the late 19th century.
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