Margravial Opera House, Bayreuth

The Margravial Opera House in Bayreuth, Germany, looking across the lamp-lit tiers to the towering court box, photographed in 2009. Nearly everything here is wood and painted canvas, carved and gilded to look like marble and gold. Margravine Wilhelmine commissioned it, and Giuseppe Galli Bibiena, the leading theater architect of his day, designed the interior; the house was inaugurated in 1748. It keeps its original materials, which is why UNESCO listed it as a World Heritage Site in 2012. Hearing Baroque opera in a room built for exactly that music is the reason to come. Wagner's Festspielhaus, on the hill above town, is a different world.