Trianon-Theater

The Trianon Theatre was a short-lived playhouse in Berlin. It opened in 1901 inside the New Royal Opera House on Königsplatz in the Tiergarten quarter. The writer Otto Julius Bierbaum launched the venture but withdrew after the first night. A year later Carl Beese reopened it in a railway arch on Georgenstraße, close to the Friedrichstraße S-Bahn station. Light comedies and operettas filled the programme there. The Rotter brothers, Alfred and Fritz, took over around 1918 and ran it as the first link in their growing theatre empire. Their management brought popular revues and musicals to the stage. By 1931 financial troubles forced the brothers to close the house for good. Today nothing of the building remains above ground. The site lies beneath the modern streetscape near the Friedrichstraße crossing. A plaque on the pavement marks the spot where the Trianon once stood. Visitors walking the area can still picture the arched entrance and hear echoes of the laughter from a century ago.