Project and construction 's plan for the Lviv Opera At the end of the 19th century, the civic leaders of
Lviv felt the need for a large city theatre to be situated in the capital of
Galicia. In 1895, the city announced an
architectural design competition, which attracted a large number of submissions. Among the participants were the
Viennese architects
Fellner & Helmer, whose entry was rejected as too international and
eclectic. An independent jury chose the design by
Zygmunt Gorgolewski, a graduate of the
Berlin Building Academy and the director of city's
Engineering Academy. Gorgolewski pleasantly surprised the jury by planning to locate the building in the centre of the city, despite the area having been already densely built-up. In order to solve the space problem, he boldly proposed to enclose the
Poltva River underground, and instead of using a traditional
foundation, utilized—for the first time in Europe—a
reinforced concrete base.
Grand opening The Lviv Opera opened on October 4, 1900. The cultural elite—painters, writers, and composers, as well as delegations from various European theatres—attended the opening festivities. Among the guests attending the ceremony were writer
Henryk Sienkiewicz, composer
Ignacy Jan Paderewski, the painter
Henryk Siemiradzki, the
Chief magistrate of Lviv
Godzimir Małachowski, the
provincial governor Leon Piniński and head of the
provincial assembly Count Stanisław Badeni. Due to recent deaths of both the
Roman Catholic and
Greek Catholic archbishops, the building was blessed by the
Armenian Catholic archbishop of
Lviv, Izaak Mikołaj Isakowicz, alongside
rabbi Ezechiel Caro and the Protestant pastor Garfel. The grand opening gala that evening included excerpts from
Jan Kasprowicz and
Seweryn Berson's
ballet (
Tale of the Midsummer Night),
Władysław Żeleński's opera
Janek, and
Aleksander Fredro's comedy ''
(Recluses'').
Later history Stories remain that despite the engineering innovations used by Gorgolewski to construct the foundation of the building, it began to slowly sink because of the Poltva river running underneath it in a tunnel. In July 1903 he died suddenly of paralysis of the
aorta. After some initial settling, the building ceased 'sinking' and remains stable to this day, owing to the innovative design of Gorgolewski. In April 1990, immediately prior to the
fall of the Soviet Union, the first performance of the Ukraine's national anthem,
Shche ne vmerla Ukrainy i slava, i volia, was held at the theatre. ==Architectural style==