Berlin State Opera

On 7 December 1742, the newly built Court Opera on Unter den Linden opened to the sound of Carl Heinrich Graun’s *Cesare e Cleopatra*. The Prussian king behind that decision had only recently come to power, and the opera house was not a side project—it was part of a broader vision of Frederician Berlin, meant to take its place among the monumental civic buildings being planned near today’s Bebelplatz. Construction had already been under way since July 1741, and the architect chosen for the job was Georg Wenzeslaus von Knobelsdorff, working in a Palladian style.

A building ordered into existence

This opera house—initially called the Königliche Oper and also known as the Berlin Hofoper—was commissioned by Frederick the Great to be built from 1741 to 1743. Even its early design carries a telling kind of prestige: the north and west façades are direct copies of elevations by Colen Campbell at Stourhead and Wanstead. In other words, Berlin’s “state opera” began with a deliberate act of architectural borrowing—controlled, refined, and meant to broadcast authority. The relationship between stage and orchestra was established from the outset. That 1742 opening performance is described as the beginning of a 250-year cooperation between the opera and the Staatskapelle Berlin, whose roots trace back to the 16th century.