Opera

The building where now is Wrocławs Opera used to be a Municipal Theater. It was built in 1839-1841 and designed by Carl Ferdinand Langhans to have a modern scene and about 1600 people audience. After the fires in 1865 and 1871, the building was expanded with a bigger audience, a new painting shop was built and the porch was expanded and decorated with paintings. The first rebuild in 1865 was coordinated by Karl Lüdecke and the next one in 1871-72 by Karl Schmidt. In 1871 on the edges of the roof sandstone statues of muses were built. Now you can admire cast of the original statues. After 1945 all of the destroyed statues were taken off and due to political reasons, all the busts of german artists (such as Beethoven, Goethe, Mozart, Schiller) were took away as well. In 1954-56 the southern part of the Opera was expanded. A major modernization of the building started in 1997 and was done in 2006.

The inside of the building is very rich with decoration and most of them were made in the 19th centuries such as plafond decorated with compositors portraits, the main chandelier (remade from gas to electricity), or caesars box. The surface gilded with pure gold is around 10 thousand square meters and the surface of crystal mirrors is 200 m2.

Since 1997 Opera in Wrocław is the only one in Poland that makes super shows, plays that are unconventional in strange places, for thousands of people with more than a hundred spectators with monumental decorations and special effects. Mostly they use the Centurial Hall because of its magnificent architecture.