Curtains Up! The Margravial Opera House in Bayreuth as World Heritage Site & Interactive Museum

It's not just baroque stage technology that you can try out for yourself on an elaborately reconstructed baroque stage. How about making music with the court music - without having to master an instrument? Our visitor orchestra invites both hearing and non-hearing participants thast are curious to find out. What did it smell like in the Margravial Opera House in the 18th century? What festivities were celebrated there? What traces of them have survived, from chicken bones to sweet wrappers? Which dancers, singers and musicians worked at the Bayreuth court? Which roles did the artists of the time slip into - and which is the right one for you? Try it out in the selfie box and virtually slip into the costumes of the costume collection manager Johann Meßelreuter. The elaborate fabrics of his costumes can literally be grasped - at one of many stations that are equally suitable for sighted, non-sighted and visually impaired visitors.

It is not just the world of baroque theatre that can be experienced in front of, on and behind the stage: the Margravial Opera House itself, which is a UNESCO World Heritage Site, is the star of the new exhibition. As a masterpiece of illusionism, created by the famous theatre architect Giuseppe Galli Bibiena for the wedding of Princess Elisabeth Friederike of Bayreuth in 1748, it sets the theme for the exhibition. Designed using historical and modern techniques of theatre illusion, as if they were stage sets, the exhibition areas tell of the exciting theatre history of the Margraviate of Bayreuth.

As early as the 18th century, there was a rich theatre landscape from the St. Georgen lake stage to the Sanspareil grotto theatre and the Erlangen opera house. Margravine Wilhelmine of Brandenburg-Bayreuth, the favourite sister of the Prussian King Frederick the Great, was a great theatre lover herself and commissioned the Margravial Opera House. Here you will not only get to know the princess as a director and artist, but also the famous Galli Bibiena family of theatre architects and their works, the best preserved of which is the Bayreuth Opera House. It was built in a short amount of time using prefabricated elements. The exhibition provides insights into the construction of the theatre and its building history as well as answers to the questions of how many kilometres of tree trunks were used in the unique historic roof truss or how the farmers of the principality procured them.

Where would you have sat in the theatre as an 18th century audience member? Here you can find your place! You weren't a guest at the Bayreuth princely wedding of the century in 1748? Immerse yourself in the media staging of the wedding of Princess Friederike and Duke Carl Eugen von Württemberg and the programme that lasted almost two weeks.

Are you curious? The exhibition invites EVERYONE to discover for themselves: children and adults, from near and far, theatre lovers and theatre newbies, history buffs or more tech-savvy types, children at play and those who want to know everything in detail. Designed according to the multi-sensory principle, the museum offers many hands-on stations for touching, hearing, looking and smelling. The exhibition is fully accessible for wheelchair users and there are facilities for visually or hearing impaired visitors - seven days a week.

A guest article by Dr Cordula Mauß

The Museum Consultant of the "Bayerische Schlösserverwaltung (Bavarian Palace Administration) curated the museum Margravial Opera House: World Heritage Site & Museum as project manager with a team of co-curators (Dr. Maria Blenk, Florian Schröter, Dr. Tanja Kohwagner-Nikolai).