Staatsoper Unter den Linden

The Staatskapelle Berlin, an orchestra founded in 1570, playing in its own house

The oldest of Berlin's three opera houses was commissioned by a king who played the flute and finished in 1742, burnt down, was rebuilt, was destroyed again in the war and reopened in 2017 after a renovation that raised the ceiling by four metres purely for the sound. It worked: the room is now warmer and clearer than anything else in the city.

Its orchestra is older than the building by two centuries. The Staatskapelle plays opera downstairs and symphonic programmes in the same room, which gives the house a continuity that newer institutions cannot buy.