Vienna State Opera
Why does this theatre look like it belongs to a different century than the rest of the Ringstrasse? The answer begins with a building that was both a statement and, at first, a disappointment: the original home of the Vienna State Opera—known in German as the Wiener Staatsoper—was completed in 1869, built to plans by August Sicard von Sicardsburg and Eduard van der Nüll, and designed by Josef Hlávka. It opened as the “Vienna Court Opera” (Wiener Hofoper), and from the start it was meant to be more than a music venue. It was meant to anchor Vienna’s grand urban expansion.
A Ringstrasse landmark, commissioned from power
The opera house was the first major building on the Vienna Ring Road, commissioned by the Viennese city expansion fund, with the construction paid by Emperor Franz Joseph I beginning in 1861. Work ran from 1861 to 1869, and the inauguration of the Vienna Court Opera took place on 25 May 1869. The premiere was Mozart’s Don Giovanni, and it happened in the presence of Emperor Franz Joseph I and Empress Elisabeth of Austria—better known as Sissi—who attended the opening ceremony. Architecturally, the building is Renaissance Revival in character, erected in the Neo-Renaissance tradition.
