To great applause, the Alte Oper started the 2021/22 anniversary season ahead of schedule with three concerts, right on time for the opening of the rebuilt historic building as a concert hall on August 28, 1981. After the pandemic was not able to play for months, Vaccinated, recovered and tested visitors were now admitted according to the 3-G principle and 48 percent of the halls were occupied according to the double checkerboard pattern.

Guido Holze

Editor in the Rhein-Main-Zeitung.

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In the corridors and in the foyers, mouth and nose protection and distance rules were compulsory, while masks could be removed on the square during concerts.

The in-house catering was open and people from one household could use the bistro tables in the new and brightly designed foyer.

So many friends of the Alte Oper, subscribers and guests of honor met again after a long time for concerts, and there was a joyous atmosphere everywhere, reminiscent of the euphoria described by older guests at the opening evening 40 years ago.

Audience in a checkerboard pattern

A panel discussion in the Mozart Hall that followed an enthusiastic children's concert from the “Pegasus” series, entitled “Back to the Future”, was also characterized by great optimism and new hopes for the role of culture. The artistic director and managing director Markus Fein admitted that it was a risk in January, in the deepest lockdown, to publish a complete program for the season that has now started as a book with 200 pages and to start advance sales assuming the checkerboard pattern. He thanked his predecessor Stephan Pauly, who was sitting in the audience and who is now the director of the Wiener Musikverein and who had planned the previous season, for the “collegial cooperation” when handing over the business.

With the “Fratopia” festival, which from September 22nd to October 1st offers a broad and cross-genre program as the “Festival of Discoveries”, Fein is continuing Pauly's approaches in its first regularly planned season. At an “Idea Marathon” on September 26th with the star architect Daniel Libeskind, under whose leadership Pauly's largest project “One Day in Life” offered 75 concerts in 24 hours at 18 unusual venues, citizens should also make suggestions for future cultural life. In addition, under the title “Campus Alte Oper” there are many new offers for music education and introductions for beginners and advanced, for which the new Clara-Schumann-Foyer is partly used. For the first time there is a jazz residency with the Swedish trombonist Nils Landgren, new formats that include live videos,“Away games” at external venues and “Music of the Periphery” under the title “Mitten am Rand”. At the “Fratopia” festival, the seating in the Great Hall will also be rearranged for three “Open Space” concert evenings.

"With power into the city"

Ulrich Schwab, the first general manager of the Alte Oper, recalled that with the slogan “A house for everyone”, the diversity of the program was aimed at from the beginning.

The protests against the reconstruction and against "Kotz und Protz" were in this respect mock battles.

He walked through the new house with representatives of the political left at the time, such as Daniel Cohn-Bendit, and promoted the program: “This is for you too.” There were strong protests against the first opera ball and the next But in the evening a carnival ball followed.

"That was a deliberate provocation on our part," said Schwab.

According to Fein, the old opera in the city is supported “across all parties”. The city's annual subsidy of seven million euros is not enough to cover maintenance. But this is an incentive to "work out the budget yourself". Insofar as there are no subsidies from the state of Hesse, the support from the Society of Friends of the Old Opera is all the more important. As Klaus Albert Bauer said as chairman of the board, the association has now collected 1,500 members and has collected a total of 15 million euros since it was founded in 1984, a further 50,000 euros for the anniversary alone and for the award of a composition commission. When asked about a vision for the future and with a view to the planned new construction of the municipal theaters, Ina Hartwigthe old opera in the future "as the northernmost point of a cultural mile". Schwab recommended going into town with a big program and “with power”.