History

After initial efforts to establish a musical theatre at a popular level in Munich in the 1830s and countless public debates, the foundation stone for the Gärtnerplatz Theatre was laid in the Isarvorstadt district of Munich in 1864. The project had been financed by a private joint stock company. The theatre's programming policy was defined in the company articles of association as follows:

"The purpose of the Company is the creation and operation of a people's theatre in accordance with the aesthetic requirements of the time and with its needs, the repertoire of which incorporates the whole area of the comedy, the popular play and farces with song, whilst opera as a whole, that is to say, comic opera, as it is called, along with grand opera, and also ballet and the classical repertoire of tragic and comic theatre are excluded from its repertoire."

The range of the repertoire was immediately apparent at the opening of the theatre on 4th of november 1865 with the allegorical festival "Was wir wollen" by Herman Schmid and Georg Kremplsetzer. The second programme item of the evening was Jacques Offenbach's one-act operetta "Salon Pitzelberger" under the title "Eine musikalische Soirée in der Vorstadt". However, the theatre, which was built as a middle-class counterpart to the court theatres, encountered financial difficulties in the following years, until the point was reached when it was about to be auctioned off. This was prevented by the intervention and financial support of King Ludwig II, who turned the theatre into the third Bavarian court theatre in 1872, making it the equal of the Court and National Theatre. For this reason, it was also renamed the "Royal Theatre on Gärtnerplatz". A further consequence of this was that the theatre remained in the ownership of the Wittelsbach family until the 1930s.

Initially, the theatre's programming was dominated by new operettas, Bavarian-Austrian dramas and the modern, naturalistic folk drama. The years 1879–1898 under the direction of Georg Lang can be described as the "golden era" of the Gärtnerplatz Theatre, as can be seen from the appearances here of important artists such as Adolf and Franz Josef Brakl, Alexander Girardi, Felix Schweighofer, Josephine Gallmeyer or Marie Geistinger. In the subsequent years until 1915, under the guidance of Georg J. Stollberg and Cajetan Schmederer, the genre of operetta moved gradually to the centre of the programme concept, with the result that the theatre became one of the leading theatres for operetta in the German-speaking world.

At the start of the 1915/1916 season, Hans Warnecke took over the running of the theatre. Due to unhappy circumstances such as the social and economical difficulties in Germany and the financial problems of the theatre itself, it had to be briefly closed in 1931 before being reopened in 1932 under the directors Paul Wolz and Otto Reimann. Adolf Hitler's seizure of power was also reflected in its staffing policy: Although the works of Jewish composers and librettists continued to be played due to their popularity, no Jewish artists were employed any longer. Because operetta enjoyed such a pre-eminent position in National Socialist cultural policy, it was decided to bring it much more to the forefront of the theatre's programming until a new operetta theatre could be built instead of the Gärtnerplatz Theatre. However, the theatre's closure for this reason in 1936 only lasted a short time, since the demolition plans were abandoned, on Hitler's instigation, and the theatre was merely renovated.

In November 1937, the theatre was handed over to the Free State of Bavaria and was reopened as the "Bavarian State Operetta", the first state operetta theatre. Fritz Fischer, who was one of the most dazzling figures in Munich theatrical life in the Nazi era, was brought to the reopened Gärtnerplatz Theatre as Artistic Director by Gauleiter and Minister of the Interior Adolf Wagner in 1937. With Fischer's appointment, a new theatrical aesthetic moved into the foreground, a new style which – taking its lead from Berlin reviews and film operetta – was characterised by splendid furnishings, massive casts and a fast pace. When the Artistic Director was called up into the Second World War in 1940, Opera Director Rudolf Hartmann took over the management of the stage temporarily until Fischer returned to his post in 1941. During his term of office, the ensemble also visited the Dachau Concentration Camp on 21 May 1941.

After being spared the worst effects of the war for a long time, the Gärtnerplatz Theatre was so badly damaged on 21 April 1945 during the last attack on Munich that it became impossible to perform there. After the Second World War, performances therefore took place in temporary premises in Schornstraße until it became possible to re-start theatrical operations in the original building on Gärtnerplatz in 1948. For economic reasons, the theatre was managed from 1952–1955 together with the Bayerische Staatsoper by Rudolf Hartmann. The result of this cooperation was that the theatre has increasingly included opera in its repertoire since the Second World War. Since 1955, once again with its own director, it has borne the name "Staatstheater am Gärtnerplatz" and has been run by Willy Duvoisin (from 1955), Arno Assmann (from 1959), Kurt Pscherer (from 1964), Hellmuth Matiasek (from 1983), Klaus Schultz (from 1996) and Dr. Ulrich Peters (from 2007). Josef E. Köpplinger has been the theatre's Artistic Director since the 2012/2013 season.