Bonn City Theatres

The Bonn city theatres comprise the opera house and the playhouse. Klaus Weise has been director general since 2003. Bonn’s tradition as a theatre city reaches back to the time of the Elector Archbishops, but it was in 1826 that the citizens of Bonn built their first playhouse. In 1965 a new building was inaugurated on the banks of the Rhine. Seating no less than 1,037, it now houses the opera company and is also used for international dance productions by visiting ensembles. Bonn’s theatre company has its own theatre, the “Kammerspiele” in Bad Godesberg, seating 473, and also makes use of further venues such as the Halle Beuel and the Werkstatt im Opernhaus. Experimental music theatre and children’s operas take place in the Alter Malersaal and in Beuel.

The Beethovenfest Bonn and Theater Bonn work closely together and co-productions are regularly staged in the context of the Beethovenfest. In 2004 Leóš Janaček’s opera “From the House of the Dead” was staged at the festival for the first time, while the “bonne chance” series included premieres of three small pieces by Achim Freyer: “Auf und Ab”, “Über die Einsamkeit der Dinge” and Freyer’s light installation for Morton Feldman’s “For Samuel Beckett”. Jan Müller-Wieland’s opera “Die Irre” was premiered at the “bonne chance” co-production in 2005, while the main opera house was the venue for Beethoven’s only opera “Fidelio” at the Beethovenfest Bonn 2005. The multimedia opera “Jenseits der Schatten” (“Beyond the Shadow”) by Vladimir Tarnopolsky was premiered as a “bonne chance” co-production at the Beethovenfest Bonn 2006. The following year saw the premiere of Moritz Eggert’s opera “Freax”, which attracted attention well beyond the confines of the region. This opera in two acts was performed concertante, the director Christoph Schlingensief staging his own interpretation of “Freax”, which is based on Tod Browning’s 1932 film “Freaks“, in the interval – in film scenes and a presentation of his “family”.

At the Beethovenfest Bonn 2009 the festival and the theatre co-operated for the first time with Stefan Blunier as the new general musical director. This collaboration was inaugurated when he conducts Richard Wagner’s “Tannhäuser” in a production directed by Klaus Weise. At the Beethovenfest Bonn 2010 again a new work by Jan Müller-Wieland was premiered in co-operation with Theater Bonn. Jan Müller-Wieland composed a melodrama about the "Knacks, a book by Roger Willemsen. The world premiere of the new work, which was commissioned by the Beethovenfest Bonn, the Ensemble Resonanz and NDR, was held at the Beethovenfest Bonn 2010: Jan Müller-Wieland conducted the Ensemble Resonanz, Roger Willemsen recited.

» http://www.theater-bonn.de