Romanian National Opera Timisoara
Opera, operetta and ballet company in the Palace of Culture on Victory Square.
The Romanian National Opera in Timisoara was created by royal decree in March 1946 and gave its opening performance, Verdi's Aida, on 27 April 1947. Its first director was the tenor Aca de Barbu. The company was granted national status in 2004. It performs opera, operetta, musicals and ballet, together with productions for children, and maintains its own orchestra, chorus and ballet company as an institution of the Ministry of Culture.
The company occupies the building on Victory Square known as the Palace of Culture, which it shares with the Mihai Eminescu National Theatre and the German and Hungarian state theatres. It was built between 1871 and 1875 to designs by Ferdinand Fellner and Hermann Helmer, and after fires in 1880 and 1920 was rebuilt by the Romanian architect Duiliu Marcu, who gave the main front its Neo-Byzantine arcade in the 1920s. The auditorium seats around 600.
Highlights
- Company founded in 1946; first performance of Aida in 1947
- Fellner and Helmer theatre of 1875, rebuilt by Duiliu Marcu
- Shared with the national, German and Hungarian theatres
- Guided tours of the building on selected afternoons
