National Opera and Ballet of North Macedonia

Skopje rebuilt itself after the earthquake of 1963, and among the buildings that rose from that reconstruction is the long, low, white complex on the left bank of the Vardar that houses the opera and ballet — an uncompromisingly modern design of interlocking planes, opened in the early 1980s and still one of the city's landmarks. The company itself is older, formed in the years after the Second World War, and has since carried the standard operatic and ballet repertoire in Skopje while giving Macedonian composers and choreographers a stage. It remains the country's only permanent opera and ballet institution, with its own orchestra, chorus and ballet company.