Margravial Opera House Bayreuth (1748)

Authors
Publication date 2017
Host editors
  • H.F. Mallgrave
  • C. van Eck
  • S. de Jong
Book title Companion to the History of Architecture. - Volume 2
Book subtitle Eighteenth-century architecture
ISBN
  • 9781444338515
ISBN (electronic)
  • 9781118887226
Pages (from-to) 593-597
Publisher Chichester: Wiley Blackwell
Organisations
  • Faculty of Humanities (FGw) - Amsterdam Institute for Humanities Research (AIHR) - Amsterdam School of Historical Studies (ASH)
Abstract
Together with Drottningholm Theater in Stockholm and the theater in Cesky Krumlow Castle in Bohemia, the Margravial Opera House in Bayreuth is one of the few remaining baroque theaters in Europe. Since 2012 it has been inscribed in the UNESCO World Heritage List. The opera house was commissioned in 1744 by Willhelmine of Prussia, Margravine of Brandenburg‐Bayreuth (1709–58) and inaugurated during the wedding festivities for her daughter, Elisabeth Frederike Sophie, and Duke Carl Eugene of Württemberg in September 1748. Wilhelmine got the idea for the opera house when her brother, Frederick II of Prussia, with whom she shared a love for opera, sent her the plans for the new Berlin opera, which opened in 1743. Supported by her husband, Friedrich von Brandenburg‐Bayreuth (1711–63), Wilhelmine was determined to give the small court of Bayreuth one of the most beautiful opera houses in Europe and to turn Bayreuth into a center of Italian operatic culture.
Document type Chapter
Language English
Published at
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