Fortunately, the idea of ​​"Dynamit-Rudi" was never seriously taken up: In 1965, when he was still the Hessian Minister of Economic Affairs, Rudi Arndt, who later became Frankfurt's mayor, suggested blowing up the ruins of the Alte Oper "with a little dynamite".

Most citizens found the idea that the splendid, classicist building from 1880, which was built with a lot of civic commitment and which was destroyed in an air raid in 1944, should be missing in the cityscape in the future, probably completely absurd even then.

The reconstruction, which was completed 40 years ago in 1981, was not undisputed.

But of course, citizens also met a second time in the former Free Imperial City, who gave money for the construction work that was important to them, for “their” old opera.

Inside, the magnificent building was now a modern concert hall.

To this day, the paneled Great Hall with more than 2,400 seats is one of the largest and best concert halls in Germany.

The old opera is developing

The old opera is a landmark of the city, a proud building and at the same time “a house for everyone”. The motto, coined by the first general manager Ulrich Schwab, is still an obligation for today's artistic director and managing director Markus Fein when designing the programs: they should be diverse, international, exciting, open-minded - like Frankfurt itself. Classical, pop, jazz, entertainment, Musicals and shows, congresses and balls: the Alte Oper is the first place on the square for all these events.

And the Alte Oper fits in with Frankfurt. She continues to develop; not only externally, as now with the newly designed foyer on level 2, named after Clara Schumann, because the directors have also brought many new creative ideas to the city in terms of content. Stephan Pauly developed the music festival created by his predecessor Michael Hocks in cooperation with the permanent tenants of the house at the start of the season, went into the city with new event formats and put on an extremely successful children's program with “Pegasus”. His successor Markus Fein, who mastered his difficult start under pandemic conditions with flying colors and created replacement programs, is similar to Pauly in his way of thinking and as an imaginative programmer. The anticipation of the firstvon Fein's regularly scheduled playing time is large.