03 — ARTWORK
Exterior view
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COMMENTARY
UNDERLINED TERMS ARE DEFINED IN THE GLOSSARY.
The Hungarian State Opera House is a Neo-Renaissance opera house located in central Budapest. It was designed by Miklós Ybl, a major figure of 19th-century Hungarian architecture. Construction began in 1875, funded by the city of Budapest and by Emperor Franz Joseph I of Austria-Hungary, and the new house opened to the public on the 27 September 1884.
A major renovation took place between 1980 and 1984. The reopening was held exactly 100 years after the original opening, on the 27 September 1984.
It is a richly-decorated building and is considered one of the architect's masterpieces. It was built in Neo-Renaissance style, with elements of BaroqueThe period in art history from about 1600 to about 1750. In this sense the term covers a wide range of styles and artists. In painting and sculpture there were three main forms of Baroque: (1) sumptuous display, a style associated with the Catholic Counter Reformation and the absolutist courts of Europe (Bernini, Rubens); (2) dramatic realism (Caravaggio); and (3) everyday realism, a development seen in particular in Holland (Rembrandt, Vermeer). In architecture, there was an emphasis on expressiveness and grandeur, achieved through scale, the dramatic use of light and shadow, and increasingly elaborate decoration. In a more limited sense the term Baroque often refers to the first of these categories. The development of the Baroque reflects the period's religious tensions (Catholic versus Protestant); a new and more expansive world view based on science and exploration; and the growth of absolutist monarchies.. Ornamentation includes paintings and sculptures by leading figures of Hungarian art including Bertalan Székely, Mór Than and Károly Lotz. In the quality of acoustics the Budapest Opera House is considered to be amongst the finest opera houses in the world.
The auditorium holds 1,261 people. It is horseshoe shaped and - according to measurements done in the 1970s by a group of international engineers - has the third best acoustics in Europe after La Scala in Milan and the Palais Garnier in Paris.
The decoration of the symmetrical façadethe front or principal face of a building, especially one elaborately constructed; a blind façade is a façade that is purely decorative and does not relate to the structure of the building. follows a musical theme. In niches on either side of the main entrance there are figures of two of Hungary's most prominent composers, Ferenc Erkel and Franz Liszt. Both were sculpted by Alajos Stróbl.
The foyer has marbleloosely applied to any hard limestone that can be sawn into thin slabs and will take a good polish so that it is suitable for decorative work; more strictly, it refers to metamorphosed limestones whose structure has been recrystallized by heat or pressure. Marbles are widely disseminated and occur in a great variety of colours and patterns, but certain types have been particularly prized by sculptors. The most famous of Greek white marbles in the ancient world was the close-grained Pentelic, which was quarried at Mount Pentelicon in Attica. The Elgin Marbles are carved in Pentelic. Widely used also were the somewhat coarser-grained translucent white marbles from the Aegean islands of Paros and Naxos. Parian marble was used for the celebrated Mausoleum at Halicarnassus. The pure white Carrara marble, quarried at Massa, Carrara, and Pietra Santa in Tuscany from the 3rd century BC, is the most famous of all sculptors' stones. It was used for the Apollo Belvedere, and was much favoured in the Renaissance, particularly by Michelangelo, who often visited the quarries to select material for his work. Neoclassical sculptors also favoured Carrara marble because of its ability to take a smooth, sleek surface, but it can look rather 'dead' compared with some of the finest Greek marbles. columns. The vaulted ceiling is covered in murals by Bertalan Székely and Mór Than. They depict the nine Muses.
The main hall is decorated with a bronzeAn alloy of copper (usually about 90 per cent) and tin, often also containing small amounts of other metals such as lead or zinc. Since antiquity it has been the metal most commonly used in cast sculpture because of its strength, durability, and the fact that it is easily workable - both hot and cold - by a variety of processes. It is easier to cast than copper because it has a lower melting-point, and its great tensile strength makes possible the protrusion of unsupported parts - an advantage over marble sculpture. The colour of bronze is affected by the proportion of tin or other metals present, varying from silverish to a rich, coppery red, and its surface beauty can be enhanced when it acquires a patina. chandelier weighing 3050 kg. It illuminates a frescoWall painting technique in which pigments are applied to wet (fresh) plaster (intonaco). The pigments bind with the drying plaster to form a very durable image. Only a small area can be painted in a day, and these areas, drying to a slightly different tint, can in time be seen. Small amounts of retouching and detail work could be carried out on the dry plaster, a technique known as a secco fresco. by Károly Lotz, depicting the Greek gods on Olympus. The royal box is located centrally in the three-storey circle. It is decorated with sculptures symbolizing the four operatic voices - soprano, alto, tenor and bass.
CITE THIS RECORD — BIBTEX
@online{wga-r4f459968023bbf,
author = {Krén, Emil and Marx, Daniel},
title = {Exterior view by YBL, Miklós},
organization = {{Web Gallery of Art}},
date = {2026-09-08},
url = {https://beta.wga.hu/artists/ybl-mikls-r0237b629a339cf/exterior-view-r4f459968023bbf},
urldate = {2026-09-08},
langid = {english}
}ACCESSED 2026-09-08. REPLACE THE AUTHOR FIELD WITH THE COMMENTARY AUTHOR WHERE ONE IS NAMED.
