Ferdinand Fellner and Herman Helmer designed the Graz Opera, which was inaugurated in 1899. The article calls the style neo-baroque. Opera had been performed in Graz since the seventeenth century, first in a converted coach house. The Thalia Theatre, adapted in 1864 from an old circus hall, was the city's first dedicated opera house.
Plans for a new theater, described as a new home for German art, were first proposed in 1887. The 1899 inauguration featured Schiller's William Tell, followed days later by Wagner's Lohengrin. The house seats around 1,200 people.
Bombing in the Second World War damaged it, and it was repaired and reopened afterward. A renovation from 1983 to 1985 added modern equipment without significantly changing the exterior or interior.
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