Theater Basel is the municipal

Municipality

A municipality is essentially an urban administrative division having corporate status and usually powers of self-government. It can also be used to mean the governing body of a municipality. A municipality is a general-purpose administrative subdivision, as opposed to a special-purpose district...

 theatre

Theater (structure)

A theater or theatre is a structure where theatrical works or plays are performed or other performances such as musical concerts may be produced. While a theater is not required for performance , a theater serves to define the performance and audience spaces...

 of the city of Basel

Basel

Basel or Basle In the national languages of Switzerland the city is also known as Bâle , Basilea and Basilea is Switzerland's third most populous city with about 166,000 inhabitants. Located where the Swiss, French and German borders meet, Basel also has suburbs in France and Germany...

, Switzerland

Switzerland

Switzerland name of one of the Swiss cantons. ; ; ; or ), in its full name the Swiss Confederation , is a federal republic consisting of 26 cantons, with Bern as the seat of the federal authorities. The country is situated in Western Europe,Or Central Europe depending on the definition....

, which is home to the city's opera

Opera

Opera is an art form in which singers and musicians perform a dramatic work combining text and musical score, usually in a theatrical setting. Opera incorporates many of the elements of spoken theatre, such as acting, scenery, and costumes and sometimes includes dance...

 and ballet

Ballet

Ballet is a type of performance dance, that originated in the Italian Renaissance courts of the 15th century, and which was further developed in France and Russia as a concert dance form. The early portions preceded the invention of the proscenium stage and were presented in large chambers with...

 companies. The theatre also presents plays

Play (theatre)

A play is a form of literature written by a playwright, usually consisting of scripted dialogue between characters, intended for theatrical performance rather than just reading. There are rare dramatists, notably George Bernard Shaw, who have had little preference whether their plays were performed...

 and musical

Musical theatre

Musical theatre is a form of theatre combining songs, spoken dialogue, acting, and dance. The emotional content of the piece – humor, pathos, love, anger – as well as the story itself, is communicated through the words, music, movement and technical aspects of the entertainment as an...

s in addition to operas and operetta

Operetta

Operetta is a genre of light opera, light in terms both of music and subject matter. It is also closely related, in English-language works, to forms of musical theatre.-Origins:...

s.

Because the theatre does not have its own orchestra

Orchestra

An orchestra is a sizable instrumental ensemble that contains sections of string, brass, woodwind, and percussion instruments. The term orchestra derives from the Greek ορχήστρα, the name for the area in front of an ancient Greek stage reserved for the Greek chorus...

, the Symphony Orchestra Basel is usually contracted to perform for opera and ballet productions as needed. For baroque-opera productions, La Cetra, the baroque orchestra

Baroque orchestra

The Baroque orchestra is the type of orchestra that existed during the Baroque period, commonly identified as 1600-1750. Its origins were in France where Jean-Baptiste Lully added the newly re-designed hautboy and transverse flutes to his vingt-quatre violons du Roy...

 of the Schola Cantorum Basiliensis

Schola Cantorum Basiliensis

Schola Cantorum Basiliensis is a music academy and research institution located in Basel, Switzerland, and focusing on early music and historically informed performance....

, is engaged.

History

Theater Basel was founded in 1834 under the name Basler Stadttheater. The first theatre was designed by Swiss architect

Architect

An architect is a person trained in the planning, design and oversight of the construction of buildings. To practice architecture means to offer or render services in connection with the design and construction of a building, or group of buildings and the space within the site surrounding the...

 Melchior Berri

Melchior Berri

Melchior Berri was a well-known Swiss architect.He was the son of Melchior Berri and Appollonia Streckeisen. In 1832 he married Margaretha Simone Burckhardt of Basel....

.

In 1873 work on a new theatre began which was designed by Johann Jakob Stehlin der Jüngere. This second theatre opened in 1875 and was used until it was destroyed by fire on October 7th, 1904.

Plans for a third theatre were soon made, but it was five years before that the theatre finally opened in 1909.

The fourth theatre opened in 1975.

External links

• theater-basel.ch, official website of Theater Basel