Stadttheater Berndorf
Description
THE BERNDORF CITY THEATRE is open all year round with a wide-ranging program that includes the traditional New Year's concert with the Arthur Krupp Symphony Orchestra as well as cabarets and concerts from the Austrian pop and rock scene. Of course, classical concerts, operettas and the annual "Berndorf Festival" are also regularly on the program.
The municipal theater has around 480 seats, is barrier-free and equipped with wheelchair spaces.
Recently, the theater has also become an incredibly romantic wedding location.
HISTORY
To mark the fiftieth anniversary of the reign of Emperor Franz Joseph I, the industrial magnate Arthur Krupp, owner of Berndorfer Metallwarenfabrik AG, had the Emperor Franz Joseph Theater built in Berndorf between 1897 and 1898. Arthur Krupp donated the theater and a number of other welfare facilities to his more than 3,000 workers. The Krupp family's motto was "Education makes free - education makes fine", which was also expressed in the construction of a new, larger elementary school building (1896) and this first workers' theater in the monarchy. The opening took place - somewhat belatedly due to the mourning period following the death of Empress Elisabeth - on September 27, 1899 with the comedy "Der kleine Mann" by C. Karlweis.
The main front of the theater faces a park and not the main square, as the client wanted to see the front from his manor house. The exterior of the building, with its variously interlocking structures in the neo-Renaissance style, looks more like a villa than a theater building. The auditorium seats 488 people, spread over a stage area and a gallery. Four proscenium boxes were installed and the factory owner was able to reach his box on the first tier via a separate staircase. Neo-baroque forms were chosen for the interior, which was frescoed by Victor Hausmann.
The auditorium's furnishings and almost all of the ceiling decorations had to be restored after a fire in 1902. The theater has been owned by the town of Berndorf since 1959. In 1989, the festival was founded in the Berndorf Municipal Theater. From 1986-1992 the building underwent a general renovation.
All information about the festival, venues, ticket sales, weddings etc. can be found on the Berndorf Theater homepage.
