1,000 blue whales?

06 Apr 2022

Did you know that around 1,000 adult blue whales could fit into the Festspielhaus? The hall measures a total of 124,000 m³ and offers 2,500 seats, making it the largest opera house in Germany.

The Festspielhaus was completed in record time: Planning began in July 1995, in May 1996 Hannelore Kohl, the wife of the then chancellor, broke ground, and in December 1997 the opera house was inaugurated.

Good acoustics can be demonstrated, among other things, by measuring how long a tone reverberates. For classical music, the ideal value lies between 1.6 and 2 seconds. In the Festspielhaus, the sound reverberates for exactly 1.8 seconds: close to perfection.

During an opera production, a stage technician walks an average of 14 kilometres, and it's of course no different at the Festspielhaus Baden-Baden. For Pique Dame, dozens of employees are active before, during and after the performance.

The chandelier of the Festspielhaus weighs 4.2 tonnes and consists of 1,200 lamps. Details of the chandelier can also be found on the tickets to the opera house.