Bayreuth, Germany

Bayreuth sits on the Red Main in Upper Franconia, Bavaria, with roughly 75,000 residents. The 1753 Margravial Opera House, inscribed by UNESCO in 2012, ranks as the largest surviving wooden baroque theatre in the world. Richard Wagner designed the 1876 Bayreuth Festival Theatre specifically to stage his operas, and the annual Bayreuth Festival has filled it each July and August since that opening year. Inside the 1758 New Palace, the Cabinet of Mirror Glass lines its walls with polished panels. Wagner and the writer Jean Paul both lived and were buried here, leaving the city a layered musical and literary record.