Margravial Opera House, Baroque opera house in Bayreuth, Germany
The Margravial Opera House is a Baroque theatre in Bayreuth, 71.5 metres long and 26 metres tall. Its sandstone facade has a balustrade with statues of Minerva, Apollo and six Muses; inside, a bell-shaped wooden auditorium seats about 500 and is covered in gold accents and a trompe-l'œil ceiling.
Built between 1744 and 1750 to designs by Joseph Saint-Pierre, the opera house was inaugurated in late September 1748 with performances of Hasse's Artaserse and Ezio for the wedding of Elisabeth Friederike Sophie to Duke Carl Eugen of Württemberg. Its cost drove the principality into debt. After Margravine Wilhelmine's death in 1758, performances declined and stopped in 1763, which helped the wooden structure survive fire.
In Bayreuth the building is simply called "Opernhaus", while Wagner's theatre is the "Festspielhaus". The three tiers of wooden boxes were assigned to the three estates of society, and the margravial couple rarely used their own Court Loge, preferring golden chairs in the front row. Since 2020 the Bayreuth Baroque festival has again staged early operas here, including works to librettos by Wilhelmine.
The theatre closed in October 2012 for refurbishment and reopened on 12 April 2018. It now forms a museum complex with the neighbouring Redoutenhaus, where an exhibition on the World Heritage site and Bayreuth's baroque theatre culture has been shown since April 2023. The auditorium seats roughly 500 people.
The roof is a column-free Baroque hanging-work structure spanning 25 metres, close to the limit of what the technique allows. Court carpenter Adolf Adam Feulner used the longest timber available, and some beams were left only partly squared to keep their strength. Because the plot was not rectangular, he built four roof frames and joined them, with the ridge stepping by up to 40 centimetres.
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