Hai Phong Opera House

On a square in the port city of Hải Phòng stands a building that holds the story of three eras: French colonial rule, the Revolution, and the period of renewal.

The building stands on Trần Hưng Đạo Street, in the new Hồng Bàng ward, which was created by the mergers of July 1, 2025. It has been a National Historical and Cultural Monument since December 2015.

The first story is about the French and their architecture. Under colonial rule, the French built three grand opera houses in three major cities of Indochina. The Saigon Opera House was built in 1900. The Hanoi Opera House was built from 1901 to 1911. The third stands here in Hải Phòng. All three followed the model of the Opera Garnier in Paris, the most famous opera house in the world.

The sources do not agree on when this one was built. One online encyclopedia gives the start of work as 1898 and the finish as November 1900. Newspaper and travel sources give 1904 to 1912. It is possible that the two sets of dates belong to two different stages of building or renovation. The first architect to win the contract was Berruer. From the middle of 1899, the work passed to Bourdeaud, who carried it on.

The style is Baroque combined with Neoclassical, typical of French opera houses at the end of the 19th century and the start of the 20th. The two-story front is symmetrical, with columns in the Greek and Roman style, decorative reliefs and a flowing, curved roof.

One thing sets this building apart. All the building materials, including the stone, metal, glass and stage equipment, were brought by the French from France to Vietnam. It was one of the few buildings in Indochina in the early 20th century whose materials came entirely from Europe.

Yet the more important story is about what happened here, not on the stage but in real life.

On November 20, 1946, relations between Vietnam and France were already very tense after a series of provisional agreements. Nearly a month before the nationwide war of resistance formally began on December 19, French forces attacked Hải Phòng. At the Opera House, a battle to defend the city was fought between Vietnamese and French forces. Platoon leader Đặng Kim Nở and 12 Hải Phòng self-defense fighters held their ground there. All 13 of them died.

So besides its architecture, the Opera House is a place of remembrance for the 13 fighters, and a spiritual symbol of the resistance of the port city.

Today the Opera House is still the main performing arts center of Hải Phòng, managed by the city's Performing Arts Organization Center. From the square, the grand front of stone columns, reliefs and curved roof belongs to a building whose stone, metal and glass once crossed the sea from France. It is also the place where a platoon of the port city's self-defense fighters stood to the last person. Those two layers of history together give the Hải Phòng Opera House a reputation that no other building shares.