City Theater Greif
The Welser Stadttheater Hotel Greif is a theater on Kaiser-Josef-Platz in Wels . It was the venue for the Richard Wagner Festival and is the venue for the Wels City Ball. The name is derived from the “Hotel zum Schwarzen Greifen”, in whose ballroom the theater has been housed since 1904. The addition “Hotel Greif” is used in order not to confuse it with other venues in Wels, so when you visit a cultural event in the city theater, you usually only speak of “Greif”. There are regular theater performances, concerts, readings, cabaret and balls in it. The hotel wing was demolished in the summer of 2018, and the theater wing will also be demolished in 2019 and replaced by a modern administration building.
history
Theaters were already being played in Wels in Roman times, and from the early modern period the theater was located on the east side of Kaiser-Josef-Platz. A fire in this building made it necessary to move. In 1904 the city theater moved to the ballroom of the hotel "Zum schwarzen Greifen", which was built in 1867. The Hotel Greif was rebuilt at the beginning of the 20th century and was one of the most famous landmarks in Wels in the style of the time. In 1916 there were plans to expand the hall from 620 to 1,200 seats, but these were never realized due to the First World War .
On December 25, 1944, the Hotel Greif and the adjoining theater were hit by seven bombs during the worst bomb attack on Wels and were badly destroyed. In the 1950s, the theater and the hotel were rebuilt in the style of the post-war years by Karl von Tobisch-Labotýn , but the building lost its historical appearance. Also in the 1950s, the cinema in the theater began, so only Tuesday could be used for stage performances.
In 1989 the city of Wels rented the hotel on a long-term basis.
In 2018, the hotel wing was torn down, and offices and apartments will be built here from 2019. Fierce controversy arose around the facade design. The original plan was to have a very simply designed facade in the style of the early 2000s, only with French balconies as design elements. However, these were not approved by the then city planning director. This would only have left an unadorned white facade. After violent protests from the population and the personal commitment of the mayor of Wels, Andreas Rabl, a compromise solution was created that is based on the old building.
meaning
The Richard Wagner Festival , which has been taking place in the Wels City Theater since 1989, is of supraregional importance . Since 2008 the Wels City Ball has also been held in the historical rooms of the theater. Other regular events are the subscription concerts in Wels.
building
The hotel was mentioned in a document as early as 1513 and has been rebuilt again and again since then. Napoleon, Tsar Alexander and King Friedrich of Prussia stayed in this hotel, which from 1776 was called "Hotel zum Schwarzen Greifen". In the first half of the 20th century, images of the building can be found on numerous postcards.
During construction work on the foundation in 1988, it was discovered that the building was being built on rubble from Roman times. The entrance to the city theater is on the west side of the building in Rainerstraße. One of the first coffee houses in Wels is located on the side facing Kaiser-Josef-Platz.
Web links
Individual evidence
- ↑ Stadt Wels: Stadttheater ( Memento of the original from December 2, 2014 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
- ↑ [1]
- ↑ Wels Marketing: City Ball ( Memento of the original from April 8, 2015 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
- ^ Wels subscription concerts
- ^ History of the Hotel Greif ( Memento of the original from March 13, 2015 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
Coordinates: 48 ° 9 ′ 37.6 ″ N , 14 ° 1 ′ 26 ″ E