On the 14th of June 1945, the premiere of the opera "Halka" by Stanislaw Moniuszko took place in Katowice. This event is considered the birth of the Silesian Opera. The founder of the Silesian opera house was Adam Didur, a well-known singer and composer. At the beginning of its activity, the cast of the Opera included mainly artists of the Lwów Opera. The Opera is housed in a neoclassical building of the former City Theatre, built in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century. The building was designed by Berlin architect Alexander Böhm.