Theater Bielefeld

Theater Bielefeld stands in the city of Bielefeld in the Regierungsbezirk Detmold. It is a three-department theatre offering plays, music theatre and ballet. The main building, the Stadttheater am Niederwall, was built in 1904 and renovated between 2004 and 2006. It is the largest theatre in East Westphalia and hosts about 500 performances each year. The theatre is directed by Michael Heicks and its resident orchestra is the 72-member Bielefeld Philharmonic Orchestra. The chief conductor is Robin Davis. The theatre has a distinguished history. Plans for an opera house began in 1885 after a foundation set up by the widow of the founder of the Crüwell Tobacco Company. Bernhard Sehring designed the Art Nouveau building, which opened with Carl Maria von Weber’s Der Freischütz on 3 April 1904. The building was rebuilt in 1937 and badly damaged during bombing in 1944. It reopened on 1 December 1945 with Mozart’s The Magic Flute. A major renovation in the early 21st century restored the theatre, which reopened in 2006 with Mozart’s The Marriage of Figaro. Inside, the Stadttheater am Niederwall presents a programme that ranges from standard repertoire to rediscoveries of neglected works. Between 1975 and 1998 the theatre gained international fame as the Bielefelder Opernwunder. During those years it staged premieres of operas once banned by the Nazis, such as Bohuslav Martinů’s Julietta and Ernst Toch’s Der Fächer. It also revived long-lost German romantic operas like Robert Schumann’s Genoveva and Louis Spohr’s Faust. The theatre’s orchestra performs symphonic concerts at the Rudolf-Oetker-Halle, adding to the city’s musical life.