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The Ring
The first major building on the Ring Road was an opera house
The 1,709-seat Renaissance Revival venue was the first major building on the Vienna Ring Road. It was built from 1861 to 1869 to plans by August Sicard von Sicardsburg and Eduard van der Nüll. It took its current name after the First Austrian Republic was established in 1921.
The reception
The public was unkind to the new house in 1869
The opera house was not particularly well-received. The level of the Ringstraße in front of it was raised by a metre after construction had begun, and the building was likened to a sunken treasure chest. The opening premiere was Don Giovanni by Mozart on 25 May 1869.
Mahler
Gustav Mahler introduced dimmed lights during performances
During his tenure from 1897 to 1907, Gustav Mahler cultivated a new generation of singers and recruited a stage designer who replaced lavish historical decors with sparse scenery in the Jugendstil style. He introduced dimmed lighting in the theatre during performances, which the audience did not at first appreciate.
1945
A bombardment set it alight in 1945, and it reopened in 1955
On 12 March 1945 an American bombardment set the opera alight, and the auditorium and stage were destroyed by flames. The front section, walled off as a precaution, stayed intact. Many private donations paid for the rebuilding. It reopened on 5 November 1955, after the Austrian State Treaty, with Beethoven's Fidelio.
Day 1, evening
It comes after Albertina.
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The words are a retelling of the Wikipedia article Vienna State Opera, and are shared under CC BY-SA 4.0. They are checked against those articles, and a fact that is not in them is left out.