Semperoper Dresden

The Semperoper wears a facade of heavy sandstone statues and a massive, rounded arch that defines the city skyline. Gottfried Semper designed this opera house to replace the original court theater that burned to the ground in eighteen sixty-nine. During the final months of the second world war, firebombed ruins were all that remained of the building. The city spent decades painstakingly rebuilding the house from the original plans, reopening the doors in nineteen eighty-five with a performance of Der Freischutz.