Staatstheater Cottbus

The Cottbus State Theatre is the only state theatre in Brandenburg. The four-division theatre offers performances of its own ensembles for drama, music theatre (opera, operetta, musical), orchestra and ballet. In 2013 it recorded over 130,000 visitors. The Cottbus theatre owes its construction to the wishes of its citizens. A flourishing textile industry had strengthened the economic and political position of the Cottbus bourgeoisie around the turn of the century and now awakened stronger cultural needs. The position attained was to be represented self-confidently with a new theatre. The city councillors decided on 1 November 1905 to build a new city theatre with an estimated cost of 800,000 marks and announced an architectural competition. The commission went to Bernhard Sehring, who had already caused a stir in 1896 with his "Theater des Westens" in Berlin. The theatre building in Cottbus — a work of Secessionist Art Nouveau — is Sehring's most mature architectural achievement, skilfully interweaving architecture, craft, painting and sculpture. After only 16 months of construction the theatre opened on 1 October 1908 with Lessing's play Minna von Barnhelm. From 1912, on the initiative of the new theatre director Otto Maurenbrecher, there was a theatre's own orchestra and a permanent opera ensemble.