Opera Lesna

The Forest Opera was cut into a wooded hillside above Sopot in 1909 as an open-air theatre, and between 1922 and 1942 it ran a Wagner festival that drew audiences from across Germany, staging the Ring cycle in the trees. After 1945 it became the home of the Sopot International Song Festival, which from 1961 was one of the very few places where Western pop acts appeared regularly on the eastern side of the Iron Curtain, and which is still held. The amphitheatre now seats about four and a half thousand under a tensile membrane roof added in 2011-2012 that keeps the rain off without closing the sides, so the forest is still part of the setting and sound carries out of it. It is used for concerts through the summer across genres. Getting there is a walk uphill through the woods from the Sopot promenade, which is part of the experience.

What you actually see

• A theatre in the forest - cut into the hillside in 1909, with trees around the stage.
• The Wagner years - the Ring staged here between the wars.
• The Sopot festival - Western acts appearing behind the Iron Curtain from 1961.
• A membrane roof - added in 2011-2012, leaving the sides open.

When to go

June to September, for the concerts. An evening.

Honest expectations

There is nothing to see outside event days - it is a venue, not a monument. The walk up is steep. Evenings get cold even in summer. Tickets for the big festival sell out early.

Nearby

Sopot pier and the promenade are downhill; the Tricity landscape park is above.