Berlin opera house reopens after delays and big budget

BERLIN: Berlin’s historic Staatsoper faces the first major test of its 400-million-euro ($472-million), seven-year transformation into a modern 21st century opera house at a gala event on Tuesday marking its long-delayed reopening.

Instead of a big blockbuster production, the more modest “Scenes from Goethe’s Faust,” from German composer Robert Schumann, will be staged for the relaunch.

“We wanted a great piece of work, which is linked to our cultural history,” said Staatsoper artistic director Juergen Flimm. The opera house’s opening is to be attended by the A-list of the German and European cultural, business and political elite.

“I am amazed at how outstanding the sound has become,” said Staatsoper musical director Daniel Barenboim after several rehearsals of the orchestra in the renovated building on Berlin’s famed Unterden Linden, the vast avenue that cuts through the centre of the German capital.

The improvement to the acoustics in the 1,356-seat opera theatre will be of considerable advantage for the singers, whose voices would have to travel over the orchestra pit, said Barenboim. The building, which has a history dating back to the 18th century, now sports a soft-pink colour.

After being bombed virtually into a shell of its former self during World War II, the original plan for the building had been to simply rip out its interior and replace it with a totally new modern opera theatre.

But in one of the many twists and turns in the renovation process, the local Berlin authorities were forced to drop the plan.

This followed stiff opposition from financial backers and guardians the city’s heritage, who instead demanded that many of the opera house’s original features be restored so as return the building to its full rococo glory.

Held to coincide with the 27th anniversary of German unification, the Staatsoper’s reopening, which follows a long-running saga of big delays and a ballooning budget, is one of the major events on the nation’s cultural calendar this year.

Hamburg’s Elbphilharmonie concert house opened earlier this year after a series of delays and costs soaring tenfold to 789 million euros.

Launched in 2010, the Staatsoper Unter den Linden’s renovation programme had been due to cost 239 million euros with the makeover finished about four years later with the building now sporting a new soft-pink colour. It went 161 million euros over budget and took seven years to finish.

One of three opera houses in Berlin, the Staatsoper has been mounting performances in temporary accommodation in a theatre for the last seven years.