Burgtheater

Burgtheater or Court Theater is the Austrian national theater in Vienna and one of the most important German-language theaters at all. The Burgtheater was founded in 1741 and was usually called "die Burg" by Viennese. The theater company of more or less permanent members gave rise to the characteristic style and speech typical of the Burgtheater performance.

The theater was founded on March 14, 1741 at the request of Empress Maria Theresa, who wanted to have a stage near the royal residence. Her son, Emperor Joseph II. in 1776 he renamed it the "German National Theatre". Three of Mozart’s operas premiered here: The Abduction from the Seraglio (1782), The Marriage of Figaro (1786) and Così fan tutte (1790). At the beginning of 1794 , the theater was already called "KK Hoftheater nächst der Burg" (Court Theater near the Castle). On April 2, 1800, Beethoven’s Symphony No. 1 was premiered here.

On October 14, 1888, the theater was moved to a new building on the Ringstraße, designed by Gottfried Semper and Karl von Hasenauer. In 1943 , under the Nazi regime, the Burgtheater played an apparently extreme adaptation of The Merchant of Venice with Werner Krauss as Shylock, one of his theater and film roles serving anti-Semitic stereotypes.

On March 12, 1945, the Burgtheater was heavily damaged by Allied air raids, and a month later on April 12, 1945, it was also destroyed by a fire of unknown origin. After the war between 1953 and 1955 , the theater was restored. The classic style of the Burgtheater and the Burgtheater’s German became defining for other German theaters.

https://sk.wikipedia.org/wiki/Burgtheater

Photo: MrPanyGoff