Venue: Wrocław Opera
Town: Wrocław, PL

The Wrocław Opera (Polish: Opera Wrocławska, German: Oper Breslau) is an opera company and opera house in the Old Town of Wrocław, Poland, opened in 1841. An Italian opera company was established in Breslau in 1725 by Antonio Maria Peruzzi, following a split with Antonio Denzio with whom he had collaborated in the Peruzzi-Denzio company at the Sporck theatre in Prague. The Theater on the Cold Ashes was opened in 1755 by Franz von Schuch (1716-1764) and performed operas till his death in 1764. His son, Schuch the younger, brought the first operas of Johann Adam Hiller to the Theodor Lobe's theatre in Breslau in 1770. His successor Johann Christian Wäser introduced more, including local Singspiel translations of works by Pierre-Alexandre Monsigny. In 1804 Abbé Vogler invited Carl Maria von Weber to conduct the Breslau Opera when he was only 18. The opera house was constructed in 1841 to designs by Carl Gotthard Langhans, supervised by his son Carl Ferdinand. It was remodeled twice after fires in 1865 by Carl Johann Lüdecke and 1871 by Karl Schmidt. After the first fire, Theodor Lobe in 1867 invited the young conductor Ernst Schuch (1846-1914) to begin his career at the theatre. After World War I notable productions during the interwar years included Schönberg's Die glückliche Hand (1928). The music directors in this period included Franz von Hoesslin who was forced to leave the city, and Germany, in 1936. Following the inclusion of Wrocław into Poland in 1945, the Lower Silesian Opera made its inaugural performance in post-World War II Polish Wrocław on September 8, 1945, with Stanisław Moniuszko's Halka directed by Stanisław Drabik. From 1945 to 1950 the building housed not only the Opera, but also theater, puppet theater and operetta performances. In 1997 the Director Ewa Michnik undertook the idea to use other venues during the complete rehab of the building (1997-2006). She created a series of mega-productions that took place around the city including the Centenni