Muziektheater/Stadhuis (Music Theater/Town Hall)

Muziektheater/Stadhuis (Music Theater/Town Hall) Review

Universally known as the Stopera—not just from the combining of "Stadhuis" (Town Hall) and "Opera" but from the radical opposition expressed during its construction—the brick-and-marble complex, opened in 1986, has been described as a set of dentures, and there were moans that its "two for one" nature was a tad too typical of the bargain-loving Dutch. Before the first brick was in place, locals protested over the razing of historic houses in the old Jewish Quarter and around Nieuwmarkt to make way for it. Look for the moving memorial laid in stones around the building that marks the spot of a Jewish orphanage. It tells how, in 1943, after German troops arrived, three teachers voluntarily accompanied 100 children to the extermination camp of Sobibor: "None of them returned. May their memory be blessed." The interior is impressive, with 14-meter-high open foyers and stunning acoustics for its resident companies, the Netherlands Opera (DNO) and National Ballet (HNB). Backstage tours are run once a week (Saturday at noon) or by prior arrangement for groups. From September to May, singers from the Opera and Conservatory perform in the free lunchtime concerts in the Boekmanzaal in the Stopera complex.

City Hall is architecturally the more functional side with municipal offices and the wedding chamber: Dutch marriages between any combination of sexes must have a ceremony in the Town Hall. For a (rather frightening) illustration of sea-level calculation, head for the glass tubes full of water and sculptured wall panel demonstrating the N.A.P., Normal Amsterdam Peil (normal sea level).