Margravial Opera House Bayreuth (1748)

Together with Drottningholm Theater in Stockholm and the theater in Cesky Krumlow Castle in Bohemia, the Margravial Opera House in Bayreuth is one of the few remaining baroque theaters in Europe. Since 2012 it has been inscribed in the UNESCO World Heritage List. The opera house was commissioned in 1744 by Willhelmine of Prussia, Margravine of Brandenburg‐Bayreuth (1709–58) and inaugurated during the wedding festivities for her daughter, Elisabeth Frederike Sophie, and Duke Carl Eugene of Württemberg in September 1748. Wilhelmine got the idea for the opera house when her brother, Frederick II of Prussia, with whom she shared a love for opera, sent her the plans for the new Berlin opera, which opened in 1743. Supported by her husband, Friedrich von Brandenburg‐Bayreuth (1711–63), Wilhelmine was determined to give the small court of Bayreuth one of the most beautiful opera houses in Europe and to turn Bayreuth into a center of Italian operatic culture