Stadttheater Düsseldorf , later Städtische Bühnen Düsseldorf,was a theatre in

Düsseldorf Düsseldorf is the capital city of North Rhine-Westphalia, the most populous state of Germany. It is the second-largest city in the state after Cologne and the List of cities in Germany with more than 100,000 inhabitants, seventh-largest city ...

North Rhine-Westphalia North Rhine-Westphalia or North-Rhine/Westphalia, commonly shortened to NRW, is a States of Germany, state () in Old states of Germany, Western Germany. With more than 18 million inhabitants, it is the List of German states by population, most ...

Germany Germany, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It lies between the Baltic Sea and the North Sea to the north and the Alps to the south. Its sixteen States of Germany, constituent states have a total popu ...

. Designed by Ernst Giese, it was constructed between 1873 and 1875.

History

On the site before the construction of the current theatre was the Altes Theater (also Grupellotheater). The name Grupellotheater recalls that the building was the former casting house of the Baroque sculptor Gabriel de Grupello. The old theatre house was used as a theatre as early as 1747, when

Charles Theodore, Elector of Bavaria Charles Theodore (; 11 December 1724 – 16 February 1799) was a German nobleman of the Palatinate-Sulzbach, Sulzbach branch of the House of Wittelsbach. He became Count Palatine of Sulzbach at the age of six following the death of his father J ...

was staying in Düsseldorf. Around 1750 it was in operation as a comedy house. From 1751 onwards, regular theatre performances were given in the house. After Düsseldorf became Prussian, King

Frederick William III Frederick William III (; 3 August 1770 – 7 June 1840) was King of Prussia from 16 November 1797 until his death in 1840. He was concurrently Elector of Brandenburg in the Holy Roman Empire until 6 August 1806, when the empire was dissolved. ...

donated the building, which had previously been state property, to the city of Düsseldorf on 11 April 1818, which henceforth leased it for theatre purposes. The first tenant was the Austrian actor and theatre director Joseph Derossi. The playhouse on the market square was finally replaced by the new municipal theatre, built from 1873 to 1875 by Ernst Giese in the Neo-Renaissance style. The auditorium of the Stadttheater Düsseldorf was partially destroyed by the air raids on Düsseldorf in World War II, but was provisionally rebuilt during the war by order of the Reichstheaterkammer. In 1946, the state parliament of the newly founded state of North Rhine-Westphalia was able to use the opera house as a meeting place. It reopened on October 2, 1946 under the musical direction of the Düsseldorf general music director

Heinrich Hollreiser Heinrich Hollreiser (24 June 1913 – 24 July 2006) was a German conductor. Born in Munich, he attended the State Academy of Music there and went on to serve as the conductor at the opera houses in Wiesbaden, Darmstadt, Mannheim, and Duisburg. ...

to the sounds of the

Coriolan Overture The ''Coriolan Overture'' (), Op. 62, is a composition written by Ludwig van Beethoven in 1807 for Heinrich Joseph von Collin's 1804 tragedy ''Coriolan''. The overture was premiered in March 1807 at a private concert in the home of Joseph Fr ...

Ludwig van Beethoven Ludwig van Beethoven (baptised 17 December 177026 March 1827) was a German composer and pianist. He is one of the most revered figures in the history of Western music; his works rank among the most performed of the classical music repertoire ...

. A comprehensive conversion to the Düsseldorf Opera House of the Deutsche Oper am Rhein was carried out according to plans by Paul Bonatz, Julius Schulte-Frohlinde and Ernst Huhn from 1954 to 1956. Theatres in Düsseldorf 1875 establishments in Germany Theatres completed in 1875 Frederick William III of Prussia {{NorthRhineWestphalia-struct-stub