Municipal Theatre of Bolzano

The largest theatre in South Tyrol can be found at the Piazza Verdi square in Bolzano: It is the Municipal Theatre, a meeting place that provides the impressive backdrop for spoken theatre, musical theatre and stage dance on numerous evenings. Here, mainly plays by the Vereinigte Bühnen Bozen, the Teatro Stabile di Bolzano - i.e. the German- respectively Italian-speaking professional theatre of South Tyrol - and the Haydn Orchestra of Bolzano and Trento, a well-known symphony orchestra, are performed. It also presents the BolzanoDanza dance festival every year. The Bolzano Town Theatre - "Stadttheater Bozen" in German, "Teatro comunale di Bolzano" in Italian -, a work by Marco Zanuso, industrial designer and modernist architect from Milan, was realised shortly before the turn of the millennium and inaugurated in 1999.

Outside, it is recognisable by its large glazed oriel above the entrance and the writing "Stadttheater" in the three national languages German, Italian and Ladin. Inside there is a large hall with 802 seats as well as various rooms and halls for smaller events and rehearsals. It is managed by the "Stiftung Stadttheater und Konzerthaus" foundation of Bolzano. By the way: The history of the theatre in Bolzano dates back to the 18th century. Already in 1784, operas were regularly performed in the Palais Menz and then in the Mercantile Magistrate.

After Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and Gioachino Rossini, Giuseppe Verdi, Charles Gounod, Johann Strauss, Engelbert Humperdinck and Mario Mascagni, among others, also performed in Bolzano. A municipal theatre inaugurated in 1918 in the Parco della Stazione park was destroyed in 1943 during a bombing raid by the Allies. Until the inauguration of the current Municipal Theatre of Bolzano, performances took place in the meantime at a wide variety of locations - from the exhibition grounds to the Walther Building.