This article features the Dresden State Opera stamp from Germany in 1991. The stamp honors the 150th anniversary of the Semperoper house in Dresden. Gottfried Semper was the designer of this now iconic building. The opera now bears his name and in addition to housing the Saxon State Opera, it is also the home of the Opera Ballet, and the Saxon State Orchestra.
As readers of this blog know, stamps featuring concert venues are quite common. Consequently, you can find other posts of mine about stamps honoring major anniversaries of the Khedevial Opera House in Cairo, the Mariinsky/Kirov Ballet and Opera house in St. Petersburg, and La Scala in Milan. You can also read about the set of stamps featuring the more modern Beethovenhalle in Bonn, Germany.
Such buildings are often among the most important in a country or state. They can be monuments to the fine arts, and are frequently places where the cultural, economic, and political elite meet. Because of this, opera houses and symphony halls are often subjects on postage stamps.
Semperopera
Semper’s opera house held its first performance on April 13, 1841, featuring an opera by Carl Maria von Weber. In 1869, the original building, which was a mix of Renaissance, Baroque, and Greek Revival styles, was destroyed in a fire. A new opera house (the current one) was once again the design of Semper, built under the supervision of his son, Manfred Semper. The new building is an iconic neo-baroque masterpiece. Again in World War II, the building saw severe damage, with only the exterior shell remaining intact. It was only in 1985 that it once again was open for peformances.
Of great historical significance, the Semperoper was home to the premiere performances of many important German operatic works. This includes Richard Wagner’s Rienzi (1842), The Flying Dutchmen (1843), and Tannhauser (1845). Later, many of Richard Strauss’s works also saw their premieres at the Semperopera, including Salome (1905), Elektra (1909) and Der Rosenkavalier (1911). In addition, it was the site of the first performances of works by Paul Hindemith, Kurt Weill, Othmar Schoeck, and many more. It remains one of the most important sites for the performance of canonical and new operatic works in the world.
The Stamp
Scott Number DE 1538
The stamp featuring the Semperoper was part of a long running series of German postage stamps featuring tourist attractions. The series ran from 1987 until 2004. Issued on October 10, this particular stamp was one of the first of the reunified country of Germany. Beginning in early 1991, a single entity, the Deutsche Bundespost, was responsible for all of the stamps, combining the three previous systems for East Germany, West Berlin, and West Germany. The stamp bears the denomination of 400 German pfennings. It was printed in a dark reddish-brown color with lighter yellow/orange shading.
Check out this short movie about the Semperoper house.
