Damascus Opera House

The Damascus Opera House (formerly Dar al-Assad for Culture and Arts) (Arabic: ) is the national opera house of Syria. Inaugurated on 7 May 2004, it is located in central Damascus, on the Umayyad Square.

Damascus already had an opera house in the 1900s. During the French colonial period, Shahbandar's People's Party held their inaugural meeting at the old Damascus Opera House in 1925. Hafez al-Assad planned the opera house early in his rule, but work did not recommence until the 2000s and Assad's son Bashar and his wife opened the new opera house in 2004.

The opera house is a five-level building that includes a 1300-seat theatre for musical productions, a drama theatre of some 600 seats and a small multipurpose hall. Since its opening, it has been the venue of numerous theatrical performances and concerts of classical European or Arabic music, as well as of film shows, such as the European Film Festival in Syria, before the civil war started in 2011. The Damascus Opera House is the main venue of the Syrian National Symphony Orchestra (SNSO) that has made frequent contributions to musical life in the Syrian capital. Compositions by contemporary Syrian composers have been performed by the SNSO, including works by Iraqi-born musician and educator Solhi al-Wadi, violinist Maias Alyamani, pianist Malek Jandali, or Zaid Jabri, featuring Syrian musicians with international careers, like clarinet soloist Kinan Azmeh. In 2014, the Opera House was the target of mortar attacks, attributed to rebels against the Syrian government. According to a report in The Times of Israel, two students of the adjacent Higher Institute of Dramatic Arts were killed and several more seriously wounded.

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