On our day trip to Dresden, a couple of us went to the Semperoper in the square. The opera house was originally built in 1841, but was reconstructed twice after it was destroyed by a fire in 1869, then again after the second World War. After it was bombed in 1945, the reconstruction took 40 years to complete. The building is best known for hosting premieres of works by Richard Wagner and Richard Strauss.
We chose to do a guided tour of the opera house, as that was the only way for us to see the inside. When we were on our tour, I was surprised by how artificial everything was. The marble on the inside of the lobby wasn’t marble at all, but plaster painted and polished to look like marble. It wasn’t just the marble that was artificial. The wooden siding just outside of the house was fake, as well. Like the marble, it was just plaster painted with grain lines in order to look like wood.
Once we were inside the house, the most unique thing to me was the clock situated at the top of the proscenium. According to the tour, the clock was originally installed to keep people from letting their pocket watches ring. The clock is especially interesting, because the minutes only change every five minutes. This is because there are only twelve faces on each side of the clock. Another interesting thing about it is how the hours are written in Roman numerals, but the minutes are written in Arabic numerals.
Overall, I found the Semperoper to be very beautiful and interesting. Theatre is my favorite art form, and I wish the tour included more aspects of the theatre’s history than just the front of house and house architecture. While the building was very pretty, I would have liked to have had more information on the theatrical aspects. I also wish the tour had gone to the backstage areas of the theatre, as those parts of theaters tend to have more interesting aspects.
Katy Troha
World History on the German Stage 