COVER N. 697 - AUSTRIA

Postmark: Sollenau Zustell basis 2601 09.03.2026

Posted on the 9th March;  Received on the 18th March 2026

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A very musical cover as so rightly befits the origin: Austria.

Vielen Dank, Manfred!

Two absolute landmarks of Vienna, Austria's capita,  that were brought back to life after their sad destruction during World War II: the Burgtheater, Austria's National Theather and Wiener Staatsoper,  Vienna State Opera.

So many such cases in history, one would think that humanity would learn from our errors of the past... sadly,  it is clearly not the case... 

Anyway, the reconstruction of both the Burgtheater, whose construction was ordered by Maria Theresa, the then ruling Habsburg Empress and which was inaugurated in 1741 and  the Staatsoper, inaugurated in 1869 during the ruling of  the Emperor Franz Joseph I and Empress Elisabeth of Austria, went almost hand in hand, it seems, since both facilities were reopened in 1955.

To mark the 50th anniversary of the reopening Austria Post issued on 25OCT2005 the very beautiful souvenir sheet on the cover, comprising two in-taglio printed 0,55€ stamps, the one illustrated with the Burgtheater building coloured sepia and the one portraying the Opera building toned in blue. 

The level of detail included on both illustrations is outstanding and it does pay to have a good look at them under a magnifying glass.

Postage was completed with a 0.55 stamp issued on 18JUN2003 as part of a 4 x 0.55 € stamp set honouring the Rolling Stones, illustrated with the always very energetic Mick Jagger.

Postmark from Sollenau, in the State of Lower Austria, centre west of the country.