Hungarian State Opera House

The night before the opening, Budapest’s newest crown jewel shines in the glow of gas lamps along Andrássy Avenue. You’re stepping into the Hungarian State Opera House, a Renaissance Revival building designed by Miklós Ybl. Construction began in 1875, and the city, with a nudge from Emperor Franz Joseph I, opened the house to the public on 27 September 1884.

The structure’s official name today is Magyar Állami Operaház, but you’ll hear locals refer to it with equal pride in Hungarian and German. Let’s start with the building’s bones. The façade leans into a Neo-Renaissance vocabulary, with Baroque hints tucked into the ornament.

The main entrance is framed by a broad staircase, once celebrated as much for social ceremony as for architecture—the sweeping ascent becoming a stage itself where gowns and velvet would shimmer in the footlights of a city evening. Inside, the foyer’s marble columns rise to a vaulted ceiling painted with murals by Bertalan Székely and Mór Than, depicting the nine Muses—an early signal that this is a place where art and craft dance together. In the central hall, a bronze chandelier weighing 3050 kilograms dominates the space, bathing a fresco by Károly Lotz in light.