Vienna City and Provincial Archive presents: Raise the curtain! Viennese theater from the beginnings to the present

Main topic in the Vienna History Wiki – exhibition in the archive foyer from March 1st to June 30th, 2023

The Vienna City and State Archives regularly present key topics on aspects of Vienna’s city history in the Vienna History Wiki, the historical knowledge platform of the City of Vienna.

Theaters in Vienna through the centuries

“Today, Vienna is regarded as an internationally renowned theater city. The reason for this is the numerous artists who have become popular around the world, but also the wide range of different aesthetic approaches and thematic orientations,” says Vienna’s City Councilor for Culture, Veronica Kaup-Hasler. “But what is also very special is the topographical spread of the around one hundred venues, which stretches from the inner city far out into the former suburbs and outskirts. To this day, this diversity contributes to keeping Vienna’s centuries-old theater scene alive.”

Between dizziness and moral instruction

Traveling “jugglers” and musical minstrels can already be found in Vienna in the Middle Ages. Since that time, the tradition of farcical farce has been rooted in Vienna with the “Neidhartspiele”. A civic participation as a performer in Good Friday and Corpus Christi plays and the move from the church forecourt to the market square were the next steps in the development of Viennese theater history.

During the Counter-Reformation, Jesuit theater came into focus and became an integral part of conversion work. Moral edification and Catholic instruction were in the foreground here.

Influenced by the art of the Commedia dell’arte, an independent professional theater was formed, which received an individual design in the Viennese Baroque era, influenced by Italian opera. The old Viennese folk theater (“Viennese Hanswurst”) was able to establish itself as a counterweight to this theater of courtly high culture.

From the traveling theater to the classic theater business

The first two permanent theater companies in Vienna, each of which emerged from “mobile” acting troupes, were the Kärntnertortheater, founded near the city wall in 1708, and the theater next to the castle (“Altes Burgtheater”), founded in 1741. With the takeover of the Kärntnertortheater by Josef Anton Stranitzky (1711), the Viennese Volkstheater found a permanent venue.

In 1776, Joseph II had the theater next to the castle elevated to the “German National Theatre” and placed it under court administration. The employees there were from now on court actors. In the years that followed, instead of opera and ballet, German drama and Singspiel was promoted here, while Joseph’s brother Leopold II, who was raised in Italy, returned to opera.

Simultaneously with the founding of the National Theater, Joseph II also granted freedom of spectacle (freedom of acting) in 1776, which led to a large number of mostly short-lived new establishments of smaller private theatres, which also included numerous domestic theatres.

Monumental buildings of the Ringstrasse era

After Vienna’s theater scene flourished in the Josephine era, the Ringstrasse era led to monumental new buildings, such as today’s State Opera and the Burgtheater. In the 20th century, cabaret and experimental theater established themselves alongside the classical theater scene in the urban area of ​​Vienna.

Today there are around 100 permanent venues in Vienna, which are primarily dedicated to the areas of music and spoken theatre, dance, performance and theater for young audiences. In addition to the federal theaters and the theaters managed by the municipality of Vienna, most of these are independent art institutions that contribute significantly to the diversity of the city’s cultural life.

Main topic in the Vienna History Wiki

Original sources from the Vienna City and State Archives refer to the rich historical material on Vienna’s theater history. In addition, objects from the Wien Museum and the Theatermuseum Wien are also included in order to offer a wide range of visual sources.

Link to topic focus: https://www.geschichtewiki.wien.gv.at/Theater

Documents in the archive foyer

In addition to the articles and illustrations in the Vienna History Wiki, the Vienna City and State Archives will also be showing thematically appropriate archive material in the showcases of the archive foyer from March 1st to June 30th, 2023. These are freely accessible during the opening hours of the archive.

Lecture on March 9, 2023: The end of an artist career. (Almost) forgotten theater greats in Vienna from the turn of the century to 1938

Lecture on June 1, 2023: Burgtheater 1918 – Court Theater for the Republic?

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