Hungarian State Opera House, Budapest

What we don’t see so much today, is the rivalry that once existed between Vienna and Budapest.  Some of it still does exist, but these two joint capital cities once made up the Austro Hungarian Empire, with the Emperor residing in Vienna and rarely visiting Budapest, which was seen as the lesser of the two cities.  The Opera Houses today embody these sentiments, and yet time has shown the Hungarian Opera House to shine brighter, and be truer to its origins.

While the Emperor Franz Josef I proclaimed the nations of Austria and Hungary to be equal, he rarely visited Budapest.  He did however, provide the funding for the new Opera house to be built in Pest. The Emperor had one condition to the building of the opera house - that it should not be larger than the Vienna Opera House. 

The building of the Opera House started in 1875 and it opened in 1884, with the Emperor himself in attendance. With its stone exterior, its appearance is similar to that of the opera houses in Vienna and Paris.  Miklos Ybl was the architect who designed the building, today it is considered one of his masterpieces. The neo-Renaissance building included elements of Baroque, and embellishments such as painting and sculptures. The quality of its acoustics are considered to be amongst the best in the world.