Oper Frankfurt

The Oper Frankfurt at Willy-Brandt-Platz (formerly Theaterplatz), opened on 23 December 1951 with Christoph Willibald Gluck's Iphigénie en Tauride to designs by architect Otto Apel, has for three decades been considered one of Germany's most innovative and most-honoured opera houses. Repeatedly voted "Opera House of the Year" by Opernwelt magazine (2003, 2015, 2018, 2020), the house succeeded the 1902 Schauspielhaus destroyed in the war — and has retained that function ever since. In 1987 the building was joined to the neighbouring Schauspiel Frankfurt by a connecting structure, creating the "Städtische Bühnen Frankfurt" double-house arrangement. The main auditorium seats 1,385 and is outwardly austere but has become acoustically and technically one of the most versatile houses in Europe. Under the intendancies of Michael Gielen (1977–87), Sylvain Cambreling, and since 2002 Bernd Loebe, Frankfurt has become the German stage for intelligent direction and unconventional repertoire: rarely performed works by Schreker, Hindemith, and Korngold; rediscoveries of Marschner and Cherubini; high-profile premieres such as Hans Zender's Don Quijote de la Mancha (1993) and Aribert Reimann's Medea (2010). The house's Frankfurt Opera and Museum Orchestra — with a nearly three-hundred-year history, one of Germany's oldest opera orchestras — performs under General Music Director Thomas Guggeis. Ensemble cultivation and long-term contracts with young singers have made Frankfurt a talent forge: many of today's world stars (Diana Damrau, Joyce DiDonato, Asmik Grigorian) had important stations of their early careers here.