5th November 1941
Freiburg City Theatre

Freiburg City Theatre

Freiburg Theatre, sometimes also referred to as Stadttheater Freiburg (Freiburg municipal theatre), formerly Städtische Bühnen (Municipal Stages) Freiburg, is the oldest and biggest theatre in Freiburg im Breisgau. It is located in Bertoldstraße, on the edge of Freiburg's historic city centre, and unites four venues under one roof: the Großes Haus (main stage), the Kleines Haus (small stage), the Kammerbühne (chamber stage) and the Werkraum (workshop). The Winterer Foyer additionally hosts author readings, such as the Litera-Tour, chambermusic concerts and evening lectures on current affairs, such as the Dream School series. Since September 2005 the theatre has been under independent ownership.

On 14th April, 1917, the south front of the theatre was damaged during an air raid. In January 1919 theatre performances could start again. In 1936 a new stage, the 'Kammerspiele' (Chamber Theatre), opened with the performance of the play Der Brandner Kaspar schaut ins Paradies by Joseph Maria Lutz. In the summer of 1939 Joseph Schlippe, the head of the city’s building department, redesigned the auditorium completely in the Neoclassicist style typical of the Nazi era. Most of the Art Nouveau stucco was removed so that the whole room appeared in a starkly stripped-down style.

On 1st September 1944, Freiburg Theatre, like all German theatres, was shut down. A few months later, in November 1944, Freiburg was bombed and the theatre was badly damaged. Performances were resumed in October 1945 with Nathan the Wise by Gotthold Ephraim Lessing. The plays were performed in any undamaged halls in the city centre and in the Wiehre. In 1946, the Chamber Theatre moved to a new location in the Wiehre. Soon after the Second World War the original building was rebuilt by the mayor, Hoffmann. To promote the quick reconstruction of the theatre, the mayor himself put on piano concerts and so collected 120,000 German marks to finance the project.

In December 1949 the Großes Haus (main stage) reopened with a performance of Richard Wagner's The Mastersingers of Nuremberg. The lower levels of the building had been reconstructed quite simply and now housed the two cinemas Kamera (today's Winterer Foyer) and Kurbel (today's small stage) – the commercial use of the building was intended to finance further reconstruction. The Chamber Theatre in the Wiehre was abandoned in 1958, but the Kammertheater (Chamber Theatre) opened in the main theatre with Max Frisch's The Fire Raisers.

Source: Wikipedia

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