This opera house cost its own architect his life. When it went up in the 1860s, the design was savaged by the press and the public, and one of the two architects took his own life under that criticism while the other died soon after, both before the house ever opened.
From 1897 was in charge here, and over ten years he changed what a performance actually looked like. Latecomers could no longer slip in while the music played, the lights in the hall went down, the that delivered applause on demand was pushed aside, and singers who coasted on routine found themselves in trouble.
To land the job he had to be baptised, since a Jew could not run the imperial opera. In the end it did him no good, because in 1907 he left after years of newspaper campaigns that kept dragging up his background, and he took the boat to New York.
From here the Operngasse runs back to Karlsplatz, where you find two pavilions designed by , the great Viennese architect.
Sources. Story: Wien Geschichte Wiki, City of Vienna; Wiener Staatsoper, historical archive
