Semperoper

The opera house on Dresden's Theaterplatz has been built twice and rebuilt a third time, and each time it has come back looking like itself. The first theatre by Gottfried Semper opened in 1841; it burned down in 1869, and because Semper was then living in exile, the second building, completed in 1878 to his design, was carried out under his son Manfred. That building is the one Dresden sees today: a Neo-Renaissance front on the square, topped by a bronze panther quadriga carrying a figure of Dionysus.

The façade is populated by writers rather than kings. Goethe and Schiller flank the entrance, and in the side niches stand Shakespeare, Sophocles, Molière and Euripides. Inside, the horseshoe auditorium for about 1,300 people is a feast of painted and gilded surfaces, with a ceiling and proscenium frieze carried out by James Marshall to Semper's designs, a 17-metre ornamental curtain by Ferdinand Keller, and, above the stage, the famous five-minute clock, a digital display that shows the time in five-minute steps, following the original design by Gustav Gutkaes.

Its musical history is extraordinary. Richard Wagner premiered Rienzi, The Flying Dutchman and Tannhäuser here in the 1840s, and Richard Strauss gave the house nine of his fifteen operas between 1901 and 1938, among them Salome, Elektra and Der Rosenkavalier. The Sächsische Staatskapelle Dresden is the resident orchestra. The bombing of Dresden in February 1945 left only the outer walls standing; the reconstruction led by Wolfgang Hänsch returned the house to the stage on 13 February 1985, exactly forty years later, with Weber's Der Freischütz.

Getting there

The Semperoper stands on Theaterplatz in the historic centre of Dresden, beside the Zwinger and close to the Elbe. Dresden Airport (DRS) is about 9 km away. Trams 4, 8 and 9 stop at Theaterplatz in front of the building; line 8 runs there directly from Dresden Hauptbahnhof and line 9 from Hauptbahnhof Nord.