The Deutsche Oper Berlin is the largest of the three opera houses in Berlin. The building at Bismarckstraße 34-37 in the Charlottenburg district was opened in 1961 to designs by Fritz Bornemann in the post-war modernist style and replaced the German Opera House on the same site, which was destroyed and demolished during the Second World War. The newly built Charlottenburg house is one of the largest theaters in Germany with 1859 seats.

Together with the Staatsoper Unter den Linden, the Komische Oper, the Staatsballett and the Bühnenservice Berlin, the Deutsche Oper forms the Berlin Opera Foundation.

The main task of the Deutsche Oper Berlin is to cultivate the “great” repertoire of the 19th century with compositions by Richard Strauss, Richard Wagner, Giacomo Puccini and Giuseppe Verdi. The Charlottenburg Opera Orchestra is praised above all for its particular versatility and its Wagner performances. Closely associated with the Bayreuth Wagner Festival, the Deutsche Oper Berlin is one of the largest sources of recruits for the Bayreuth Festival Orchestra.

The initiative to found an opera house at the beginning of the 20th century came from bourgeois circles in the then independent Charlottenburg. As an economic pillar of the state and intellectual pioneers, the residents of Prussia's richest city wanted an opera house “for themselves” as an alternative to the “ossified” representational stage of the court opera on Unter den Linden. The city of Charlottenburg had the German Opera House built in 1911/1912 according to plans by Heinrich Seeling. When Charlottenburg became part of the Reich capital in 1920, the opera house, which could seat over 2,300 people, was given the name Städtische Oper.

In 1934, during the National Socialist era, the Charlottenburg house, which was renamed the Deutsches Opernhaus, became the property of the Reich and was thus under the control of Joseph Goebbels' Reich Ministry for Popular Enlightenment and Propaganda. Contrary to the original design with an auditorium independent of social status, a “Führerloge” was created. During the National Socialist era, the building was considered the representative stage of the Nazi regime alongside the Bayreuth Festspielhaus. On November 23, 1943, the house burned down during Allied air raids. On September 1, 1944, the general theater ban came into force and all theaters were closed.

After the demolition of the previous building, which had burnt out during the Second World War, the current new building on Bismarckstraße was constructed between 1957 and 1961 according to designs by Berlin architect Fritz Bornemann. The opening took place on September 24, 1961 with Mozart's Don Giovanni. The new building cost 27.5 million marks (around 73.1 million euros). In the same year, it was renamed to its current name, Deutsche Oper Berlin.

In the following years, the Deutsche Oper grew into the role of the representative house of the state of Berlin (West), as the Staatsoper Unter den Linden, which had traditionally played this role in Berlin, took on its own development together with the eastern part of Berlin and the GDR. At the same time, as the only opera house in West Berlin, it now had to cover the entire opera repertoire. In addition to operas from the core repertoire, the repertoire often included German premieres and world premieres.

After German reunification, the Deutsche Oper lost its status as the only representative opera house in West Berlin. With the establishment of the Berlin Opera Foundation on January 1, 2004, the ballet of the Deutsche Oper was merged with the ballet companies of the other two opera houses and the Staatsballett Berlin was founded, which performs in all three opera houses. (Source: Wikipedia)