Aalto-Theater

The Aalto-Theater in Essen, opened on 25 September 1988 with Richard Wagner's Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg, ranks among the most architecturally significant opera houses of the twentieth century and is one of only three completed opera house designs by Finnish master architect Alvar Aalto (1898–1976). Aalto won the original design competition in 1959, but the city of Essen postponed construction for nearly three decades for financial reasons; Aalto himself died in 1976, twelve years before his design was finally realised. Construction took place from 1983 to 1988 under the supervision of his widow Elissa Aalto and the Finnish architecture firm Alvar Aalto & Co. The asymmetrical building with its distinctive blue-tiled exterior wraps around the auditorium in flowing organic forms that became Aalto's late-period signature. The 1,125-seat main hall — clad entirely in dark blue and white tones with characteristic Aalto wooden slats on the walls — is acoustically one of the finest opera houses in Europe. The unusual shape of the auditorium, asymmetrical with no two seats identical, distributes sound with remarkable evenness; only Hans Scharoun's Berlin Philharmonie and Aalto's own Finlandia Hall in Helsinki achieve comparable acoustic effects from radical asymmetry. The Aalto-Musiktheater company performs alongside the Aalto-Ballett-Theater under one administrative roof, the Theater & Philharmonie Essen GmbH, which also operates the Philharmonie Essen for concerts and the Grillo-Theater for drama. With over 200 performances per season and the resident Essen Philharmonic Orchestra under General Music Director Andrea Sanguineti, the house is the cultural anchor of the Ruhr Region and a key destination on the European architecture-and-opera circuit. The 2008 expansion added a foyer restaurant designed in consultation with Elissa Aalto, completing the original masterplan after exactly fifty years.