Theater Koblenz

The Koblenz Theatre was commissioned by the Elector and Archbishop of Trier, Clemens Wenzeslaus von Sachsen, and built in 1787 by the architect Peter Joseph Krahe in the then new Neustadt district.

On 23 November 1787, the theatre, designed as a multi-purpose building, was opened with a performance of Mozart's Die Entführung aus dem Serail under the direction of Johann Heinrich Böhm as Kurfürstliches Komödien- und Ballhaus.

After the end of the electoral and French periods, it passed into private ownership, with the owners changing several times and doing little to maintain the building or provide an ambitious programme.

The city had the run-down building renovated by master builder Hermann Nebel [de] in 1869, and the interior was rebuilt in the style of historicism.

During the Second World War, the theatre was closed in August 1944, but since it was one of the few buildings in the city centre to remain largely intact during the air raids on Koblenz [de], it was able to reopen on 1 June 1946.

Since the building offered one of the few rooms that had not been destroyed in the war and was large enough, the constituent meeting of the Beratende Landesversammlung [de], which discussed the constitution of the newly founded state of Rhineland-Palatinate, took place in it on 22 November 1946.

Since the theatre had suffered considerable damage due to its age, no longer complied with the relevant safety regulations and the stage technology was completely outdated, it was comprehensively restored between 1984 and 1985 with the aim of coming as close as possible to its original state of 1787.

Attached to this is an attic with a raised central section bearing the Latin inscription 'Musis Moribus Et Publicae Laetitiae Erectum MDCCLXXXVII (To the Muses, to Morality and for the Pleasure of the Public erected 1787).

The central auditorium, decorated in blue, grey and white, is surrounded by a three-storey, free-floating tier arrangement that encloses the hall in a horseshoe shape.