Victoria-Theater

The Victoria-Theater stood on Münzstraße in Berlin-Mitte from 1859 until 1891. It was an unusual experiment in theatre design, combining an open-air summer theatre and a fully enclosed winter theatre under one roof. The winter auditorium had three tiers and held 1,400 seats, and could also be cleared for dance balls. The building was planned by the impresario Rudolf Cerf with actor Robert Guthery senior and built by theatre architect Eduard Titz to designs by Carl Ferdinand Langhans. The house quickly became a centre for lavish Paris-style spectacles, operettas and early revues. Kapellmeister August Conradi led the orchestra, while performers such as Hermann Hendrichs, Emil Hahn, Charlotte Wolter and Anna Müller-Lincke appeared on its stage. In 1881 Angelo Neumann’s company gave the Berlin première of Wagner’s Ring des Nibelungen here. By the 1870s the summer theatre was used only as a backstage area. Visitors entered a single foyer that served both auditoriums, with the winter theatre’s three-storey auditorium rising behind the stage. The summer theatre’s open sides looked onto the street, while the winter theatre’s enclosed space could be transformed for balls. After structural changes ended the dual operation, the theatre closed in 1891 and was demolished soon after.