The May Uprising took place in Dresden, Kingdom of Saxony in 1849; it was one of the last of the series of events known as the Revolutions of 1848.
The May Uprising took place in Dresden, Kingdom of Saxony in 1849; it was one of the last of the series of events known as the Revolutions of 1848.
The Opernhaus am Zwinger (Opera house at the Zwinger) was a theatre in Dresden, Saxony, Germany, opened in 1719. The architect of the Zwinger, Matthäus Daniel Pöppelmann, was also responsible for the opera house situated next to its south-western pavilion. The building replaced the first opera house of Dresden, the Opernhaus am Taschenberg, which was transformed to a church.
The three-tier hall seated up to 2000 people and was at the time one of the largest opera houses in Europe. The first performance was on 3 September 1719 Antonio Lotti's Giovi in Argo, followed on 13 September by the premiere of Lotti's Teofane on the occasion of the wedding of prince Friedrich August II, later the elector and as August III king of Poland, and Maria Josepha of Austria. The house flourished when he, an opera enthusiast, reigned as elector, and Johann Adolph Hasse was musical director. Due to the Seven Years' War, the last opera, Hasse's Olimpiade, was performed in 1756. The building was used for balls and concerts. It burned down during the May Uprising in Dresden in 1849. The next opera house, the Semperoper, was built at a different location.
Gottfried Semper (German: [ˈɡɔtfʁiːt ˈzɛmpɐ]; 29 November 1803 – 15 May 1879) was a German architect, art critic, and professor of architecture who designed and built the Semper Opera House in Dresden between 1838 and 1841. In 1849 he took part in the May Uprising in Dresden and was put on the government's wanted list. He fled first to Zürich and later to London. He returned to Germany after the 1862 amnesty granted to the revolutionaries.
Semper wrote extensively on the origins of architecture, especially in his book The Four Elements of Architecture (1851), and was one of the major figures in the controversy surrounding the polychrome architectural style of ancient Greece. He designed works at all scales—from major urban interventions such as the redesign of the Ringstraße in Vienna, to a baton for Richard Wagner. His unrealised design for an opera house in Munich was, without permission, adapted by Wagner for the Bayreuth Festspielhaus.