In 1865, Richard Wagner had to flee from Munich, but in 1901 the residents of Munich eventually built the Prince Regent Theatre for the operas he composed. The architect Max Littmann was inspired by Wagner’s festival hall in Bayreuth and gave the theatre a modern look. It now hosts performances, concerts and events of all sorts. Visitors taking a tour through the playhouse will discover the well-preserved historical stage machinery. Littmann’s first theatre, the Kammerspiele, is not far away.

Theaterakademie August Everding im Prinzregententheater • Prinzregentenplatz 12 • 81675 Munich • Germany • +49 (0)89 21 85 29 00 • info[at]theaterakademie.de www.theaterakademie.de

Visits: daily on appointment

Festivals: ballet festival week (April), Munich opera festival (July)

The exterior is given monumentality in the style of Semper, but the interior is almost a replica of Bayreuth, with plain wooden seats, a single ramp without boxes or galleries, and an invisible orchestra hidden beneath a hood. Oddly enough, it was a minor subsidiary theory of Wagner's which had more influence on theatre architecture than his actual achievements. Opera he considered 'ideal', drama 'real'; opera was for an elite, drama for the people; opera had been evolved by the aristocracy, drama by das Volk. It followed that while opera made manifest 'the unapproachable world of dreams' on a mysterious stage remote from the audience, drama was concerned with real life, and should be projected into the centre of an auditorium, as Shakespeare's plays had been. Littmann attempted to put these ideas into practice in some of his theatres, notably the Kiinstlertheater, Munich, whose bare platform stage was later the setting for exciting experiments by avant-garde designers and producers like Max Reinhardt and Georg Fuchs.

In: Tidworth, Simon : Theatres: An Illustrated History. London 1973 p. 175