In four years, more than 600 employees of the Nuremberg Opera will move into a horseshoe-shaped property, the cornerstone of which Adolf Hitler laid in 1935. Your new home, the NS congress hall torso on the former Nazi party rally grounds, is 39 meters high, semi-raw, terrifying, historically contaminated. Not a tempting place one might think. But if you watch Nuremberg opera singers waving colorful balloons and singing from “Carmen” shortly before the city council’s decision, you will get an impression that this move seems to be very welcome. Five hours later – the city has decided to build an interim opera for what is probably the most famous Nazi area in the republic – State Director Jens-Daniel Herzog sounds enthusiastic. Thousands of employees, including freelancers, “feared for their future,” he says. Now you know how (and that) it goes on.
Next to him, town hall chief Marcus König (CSU) shines in cameras, praising a “historic decision”. In fact, things were not going well in Nuremberg. The opera house in the city center, opened in 1905, resembles in parts a theater museum behind the stage. It will be closed in 2025 due to the lack of fire protection. So it was in a hurry, the opera and dance ensemble of the largest multi-branch house in Bavaria threatened to become homeless. An interim building on former Nazi soil? In Nuremberg, where they pretend to be a “culture of remembrance”, it would have been hardly conceivable in the 20th century. You can still hear that a bit in the city council debate. At the Nazi building there would also be “funny events,” said one FDP man. Imagine being macabre. Nevertheless, he votes for it, like almost everyone.
There is talk of 130 million euros for the provisional, the renovated parent company will cost 400 million
The problems are only just beginning, warns a left-wing city council. There is talk of 130 million euros for the provisional opera, the completely refurbished parent company should cost 400 million euros – according to rough estimates. Half a billion? For the notoriously clammy Nuremberg, the historic working-class city of Bavaria, that would be unaffordable. So the Free State has to help. He runs half of the house, but the city is basically responsible for the building fabric. “The MP will help,” says someone who is familiar with the matter. This is Markus Söder, from Nuremberg.
Whether the opera hall will be built in the previously deliberately desolate inner courtyard of the listed Nazi property or in front of it seems marginal – given such costs – but is highly controversial in Nuremberg. The city council does not want to commit itself, the decision was postponed. It may well be that Nuremberg’s opera singers have to perform motivational serenades for the council of their city even more frequently.