Lodge theater
Lodge theater describes a design of the auditorium that is characteristic of the baroque theater : around the parquet floor , which is not yet seated and which is used for ballets and dance balls, there are balconies ("tiers"), which are divided into individual boxes with partition walls .
This allowed the families and societies in the boxes a certain seclusion, mutual visits and a relatively unhindered coming and going during the performance. The stage towards the royal box, in the time still lit auditorium is the spectators' view as to be moved as the stage.
The box theater became a political issue at the beginning of the 19th century when the bourgeois city and “national” theaters prevailed over the court theaters . In some theaters, the partition walls between the boxes were torn down in order to demonstrate at least a symbolic removal of the class boundaries (for example in the Riga City Theater in 1836, when it was passed from the property of the Barons Vietinghoff to a civil society).
The pillars between the boxes, which can become a visual obstacle in box theaters converted in this way, cannot be removed. Newer theater buildings often had only a few boxes or for political reasons they did without them entirely, such as the Richard Wagner Festival Hall in Bayreuth, whose auditorium is designed as a rising grandstand with reference to the “democratic” Greek theater.
One of the preserved box theater is the Margravial Opera House in Bayreuth . Even more modern theaters such as the Vienna Burgtheater have retained the character of a box theater. The Teatro La Fenice Venice is a box theater that has been rebuilt several times .
literature
- Hans-Wolf Jäger (Ed.): "Public" in the 18th century . Wallstein, Göttingen 1997, ISBN 3-89244-274-6 .
