Vienna State Opera

Where it sits. The Wiener Staatsoper stands at the corner of the Opernring and Kärntner Strasse, the first major building completed on Vienna's Ring Road and still the hinge between the old inner city and the boulevard that replaced its walls. It is a Renaissance Revival house of 1,709 seats, built between 1861 and 1869 to plans by August Sicard von Sicardsburg and Eduard van der Nüll, with the Czech architect and contractor Josef Hlávka running the site. The stone came from all over the empire: hard Kaiserstein from Kaisersteinbruch for the richly carved sections, Wöllersdorf stone for the plinths, cheaper Jois stone as a substitute, and material from Soskut in Hungary once demand outstripped the local quarries. The staircases are polished Kaiserstein; most of the interior is marble.

A difficult birth. Vienna disliked it. The level of the Ringstrasse in front of the building was raised by a metre after work had already begun, leaving the house sitting low, and critics called it a sunken treasure chest and the Königgrätz of architecture, after the military catastrophe of 1866. Van der Nüll took his own life; Sicardsburg died of tuberculosis barely ten weeks later. Neither saw the opening on 25 May 1869, when Mozart's Don Giovanni was performed before Emperor Franz Joseph and Empress Elisabeth. Gustav Mahler directed the house from 1897 to 1907, replaced its heavy historicist sets with sparer Jugendstil designs, and introduced the practice of dimming the auditorium lights during performances, which the audience initially resented. On 12 March 1945 an American bombardment burnt out the auditorium and stage, destroying sets for more than 120 operas and around 150,000 costumes; the walled-off front section survived, including the foyer with its frescoes by Moritz von Schwind, the main staircase and the tea room. The rebuilt house reopened in November 1955.

On screen. The opera house carries the centrepiece of Mission: Impossible - Rogue Nation (2015). Ethan Hunt tracks three separate assassins through the building during a performance of Puccini's Turandot, one of them carrying a rifle disguised as a flute, and the shot is timed to the climax of the aria Nessun dorma. The production filmed in Vienna from late August 2014 for about a week and a half before moving to Morocco, and Joe Kraemer's score works Nessun dorma into three separate cues. Paramount then premiered the finished film in the same building on 23 July 2015, an unusually literal case of a production returning to its own location. The sequence is worth watching before a visit because it makes deliberate use of the real backstage geography: the flies above the stage, the technical galleries and the catwalks that the house tour also crosses.

What you actually see. The State Opera runs a true repertory system, with roughly 350 performances of some 60 operas and ballets in a season that runs from September to the end of June, changing the programme almost nightly. The Vienna Philharmonic is recruited from its orchestra. Guided tours run most days when the stage is free and take in the auditorium, the Schwind Foyer, the tea room and the imperial staircase. Standing places, the famous Stehplätze, go on sale shortly before curtain for a few euros, with a long-standing etiquette of tying a scarf to the rail to reserve your spot. In April, May, June and September the house streams performances live and free onto a large screen on the Herbert von Karajan Platz outside. During carnival the auditorium floor is raised to stage level for the Vienna Opera Ball, held on the last Thursday before Lent.

Around it. The Albertina is two minutes away, the Kunsthistorisches Museum and the MuseumsQuartier five to ten minutes west along the Ring, and Café Sacher sits immediately behind the opera on Philharmoniker Strasse. The Ring tram, lines 1, 2, 71 and D, passes the front door, and the U1, U2 and U4 underground lines all meet at Karlsplatz next door. The pedestrianised Kärntner Strasse runs from the opera to St Stephen's Cathedral in about eight minutes on foot.

Timing. Tickets for major productions and star casts are released months ahead and disappear quickly, but the repertory model means there is almost always something on, and mid-week performances of standard repertoire are far easier to get into. The house is dark in July and August, when the tour becomes the only way inside. Vienna is at its best for walking in May, June and September; winter brings the ball season and the Christmas markets, along with higher hotel rates and colder queues for standing tickets.