Szeged National Theatre
Fellner and Helmer playhouse of 1883 with resident drama, opera and ballet companies.
Szeged built its theatre on the site of the demolished fortress, commissioning the Vienna partnership of Ferdinand Fellner and Hermann Helmer, who designed dozens of playhouses across central Europe. The eclectic, neo-Baroque house opened on 14 October 1883, but burned down on 22 April 1885, barely eighteen months later. The same architects redrew it with iron roof trusses and other fire precautions, and the rebuilt theatre reopened on 2 October 1886. It has dominated the riverside end of Deák Ferenc utca ever since.
The theatre is the largest in southern Hungary and keeps separate drama, opera and ballet companies, so a week's programme can move from Verdi to new Hungarian plays. A second, smaller auditorium, the Kisszínház, opened in 1977 in a converted building of 1928-29 and takes studio work and chamber pieces. The company also supplies performers for the Szeged Open-Air Festival in Dóm Square each summer. Restoration work in recent decades has returned the gilding and painted ceiling of the horseshoe auditorium.
Highlights
- Horseshoe auditorium by Fellner and Helmer
- Resident drama, opera and ballet companies
- Kisszínház studio stage for chamber work
- Rebuilt in 1886 after the fire of 1885
