An additional bit of trivia that I encountered was that the "new" opera house was so severely criticized by the public that the principal architect, Edouard van der Null, committed suicide at about the time that the (original) building was completed.

Note that details are sparse, and although the article I found implies that it was because of the criticism, that's not necessarily a documented conclusion. The guy appears to have been subject to some "strangeness" of personality.

John