The Margravial Opera House is the best preserved example of a free-standing Baroque court theatre. It was modelled on the greatest opera houses of the time in Vienna and Dresden. As a unique monument of 18th-century festival and music culture it was inscribed by UNESCO in the list of World Cultural Heritage of Humanity in 2012. The architect appointed to design the new opera house was the leading theatre architect of the day, the Italian Giuseppe Galli Bibiena who had been working for the Viennese imperial court.
The Margravial Opera House is modelled on Italian loge theatres of the period.The interior of the theatre was constructed in record time with some of the wooden architectural elements and sculptures prefabricated and painted elsewhere. Under the direction of the architects Giuseppe and Carlo Galli Bibiena, a masterpiece of ephemeral festival architecture was completed from 1744 until 1748 in under four years.
