Societaetstheater

The Societaetstheater is the oldest popular theatre in Dresden, Germany. Founded in 1776 as an amateur theatre by a society of friends from both the nobility and the middle class, it was initially respected and influential but declined in the early 19th century after the fashion shifted to elaborate historical and verse dramas and the national theatre movement grew in importance, and was eventually dissolved in 1832. The Baroque building on Hauptstraße in the Innere Neustadt was abandoned for many years in the second half of the 20th century, but beginning in 1979, a movement grew to restore it. The theatre reopened in 1999 and is now operated by the city.

After the end of the Seven Years' War in 1763, the theatrical landscape in Dresden shifted, with French actors being replaced by German, "partly to save money, partly out of patriotism". "Reformed" theatre groups such as that of Abel Seyler gained in respect against the court theatre, which was felt to be too focussed on spectacle, and the educated middle class began to emulate the amateur theatre of the aristocracy.

On 19 May 1776, a group of fifteen friends founded a society for the purpose of creating a private theatre in their leisure time, and the Societaetstheater was ceremoniously opened the same day, initially in a temporary home near the current location of the main station with a capacity of approximately 50 spectators.

In 1777, with the assistance of the publisher Conrad Georg Walter, the theatre moved to a larger building in Borngasse (near the current location of the German Hygiene Museum), but after Walter's death the following year, it moved again on 7 December 1779 to its current home, a garden building in the courtyard behind the residence of the government secretary Johann Christoph Hoffmann at Hauptstraße 19. This had been built in 1740 in Baroque style, intended for masquerades, but never used. It accommodated an audience of 250 and a 24-piece orchestra. The 6 by 5 metres (20 ft × 16 ft) stage was small even then; it was illuminated with wax or tallow candles in special holders designed to reflect the light on the desired spot. The interior was by Johann Ludwig Giesel, who also designed the interior of the original Gewandhaus in Leipzig. The design for the curtain in 1779 was by Johann Eleazar Zeissig, known as Schenau, a director of the Dresden Academy of Fine Arts; it depicted, amongst genii and garlands of roses, scenes from Greek mythology, such as Thalia, the muse of comedy, showing a youth the way to the temple of virtue while a bacchante tried to draw him towards the temple of lust.

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