Architecture of the Semperoper

Ernst Friedrich August Rietschel, born in Pulsnitz near Dresden in 1804, was one of the most famous sculptors of his time. Typically Dresden, he remained loyal to his hometown and taught as a professor of sculpture at the local art academy, despite offers from Vienna and Berlin. His artistic practice is exemplified by the two friends who frame the entrance to the Semper Opera House and to whom he later dedicated a double statue in Weimar: the poet laureates Goethe, here in the picture, This connection between opera and literature was entirely in keeping with the intentions of the architect Gottfried Semper, who wanted to ‘add lustre and ornament to a monument dedicated to the dramatic arts in their entirety by making symbolic references to the various artistic manifestations that should be expressed within it’.

One of the clearest expressions of Gottfried Semper's programmatic claim is the opera with which the new artistic director Nora Schmid opens her first Season: Arrigo Boito's Mefistofele is based on Goethe's Faust material, which he rearranged for his stage work, placing the devil at the center of his masterwork.