Alte Oper Frankfurt

The Alte Oper (Old Opera) in Frankfurt/Main was almost completely destroyed in World War II. During reconstruction work in the 1970s, the historical building shell was restored to its original condition. The interior spaces, including the large hall with 2,500 seats, was adapted to the needs of that time. In order to allow greater flexibility of use, it was converted into a concert venue.

In January 2013, SBS Bühnentechnik was commissioned to replace the entire understage machinery of the large hall. The old hydraulically-driven elevators were removed and replaced with new elevators, mainly rigid and low-vibration scissor constructions with spiral-strip type linear actuators and electromechanical drives.

All elevators underwent factory trial and commissioning cycles at SBS.

It was thus possible to achieve very short assembly times at the Alte Oper Frankfurt. The elevator rows were easily integrated into the new COSTACOwin® stage control system, which was also installed by SBS.

The customer benefited from a well-planned understage machinery that was handed over on time and to the customer’s full satisfaction. In the ensuing years, the overstage machinery was renewed, other stage equipment was added, and by the year 2018 the entire machinery had been integrated step by step into the control system.