Alte Oper

The Alte Oper is marked by its massive triumphal arch entrance and the grand, yellow-stone facade topped by a bronze statue of Pegasus. Opened in eighteen eighty, it functioned as the city's premier opera house until Allied bombing destroyed the interior in nineteen forty-four. For decades, the shell stood as a hollow ruin, often called the most beautiful ruin in Germany. Citizens campaigned for years to fund its reconstruction, finally reopening the doors as a concert hall in nineteen eighty-one.