The Staatsoper Unter den Linden, also known as the Berlin State Opera, is a listed building on Unter den Linden boulevard in the historic center of Berlin, Germany. The opera house was built by order of Prussian king Frederick the Great from 1741 to 1743 according to plans by Georg Wenzeslaus von Knobelsdorff in the Palladian style. Damaged during the Allied bombing in World War II, the former Royal Prussian Opera House was rebuilt from 1951 to 1955 as part of the Forum Fridericianum square. Nicknamed Lindenoper in Berlin, it is "the world´s oldest state opera" and "the first theater anywhere to be, by itself, a prominent, freestanding monumental building in a city."