The Berlin State Opera has awarded three prizes in the competition for the complete renovation of its main hall and auditorium. The opera house on Unter den Linden was last renovated shortly after the Second World War and the auditorium was not restored to its original condition but rebuilt in a classical style and with a slightly lower ceiling that ruined the hall’s acoustics.

The present opera house was built in 1843 after the previous hall on the site was destroyed by fire. It was extensively renovated in 1928, but closed from 1941-1942 after it was struck by an Allied bomb. The building suffered great damage during the final Battle of Berlin in 1945 and fell behind the Iron Curtain in Communist East Berlin after the end of the war. Owing to East Germany’s lack of funds, it was ten years before the Opera House was reconstructed and reopened in 1955.

Years of poor maintenance during the Communist era combined with mere piecemeal renovations after the fall of the Berlin Wall took their toll on the building. The collapse of an hydraulic stage elevator during a performance of “Don Giovanni” in 2002 made apparent the need for a complete overhaul. The Opera decided to call for new designs for the main hall and awarded its first place prize to a flowing, sleek modern design by Klaus Roth. Second and third places were awarded to Hentrich-Petschnigg & Partner and GMP (Gerkan Marg und Partner), respectively, for designs that were modified reproductions of the 1955 renovation.

The German critic Manuel Brug, writing in the broadsheet Die Welt, criticized the second- and third-place designs as transforming the hall “into a kind of movie-theater-in-the-Fifties look”. Brug, however, praised the entirely modern first-prize design by Klaus Roth, citing “the intelligently solved entrances including additional stairways, the sight-lines, … even the many more generous restrooms. Madly, the hall swings harmoniously, as it directs the view of the dark proscenium, unblemished by any diverting ornament.”

While the modernity of the Klaus Roth design might seem incongrous in an essentially classical building, its simplicity of design will help orient the audience towards the performance, and the current poor acoustics and ersatz Baroque of the Communist renovation will not be mourned. Still, it is regrettable that the Berlin State Opera did not seek to avoid the competing designs and their worries entirely and simply restore the main hall to its original 1843 appearance.