This is on the heels of a previously announced one year delay. The refurbishing was originally supposed to be finished by October of next year and now the theater is scheduled to open in the Fall of 2015.

Problems resulted from the discovery of remains of Middle Age lake dwellings, wooden stilt houses, under the theater. The main cause of the delays, however, are the new plans to increase the insulation the building from the underground water. The floor of an underground passage between the rehearsal facility and the hall, for example, was to have some five feet of concrete but new plans call a doubling of that.

Both music director Daniel Barenboim and director Jürgen Flimm expressed their displeasure with the news of the delay. Since September 2010, the opera has been temporarily housed in Berlin's Schiller Theater.

Frank Cadenhead