Until the beginning of WW1, the building housed an Orpheum (or music hall). When the war broke out, the "palace of entertainment" closed, the golden age of the music halls and the nostalgic era of the peaceful pre-war times ended. In 1923, the leadership of Budapest decided that the operetta genre needed its own institution. With the opening of the Capital City Operetta Theatre, the Silver Age of operetta truly began in Budapest as well - after being performed in the Popular Theatre and the Royal Theatre, operetta found its real home. Throughout the history of the theatre, its main goal was to maintain the traditions of classical operetta, and enrich it with the newest creative solutions. Budapest - as well as Vienna - is the capital city of operetta, where adherence to our heritage is combined with exciting new ideas. 

THE BULDING
It was created in 1894, following the plans of two popular Viennese architects, Fellner and Helmer. The enormous stage of the main theatre was flanked by a graceful curve of private boxes, both on the first and second floors, while the dance floor left enough space to dance the waltz, the polka, the mazurka or the gallop. The charming winter garden housed an excellent French restaurant, and a café opened on the street front. When the theatre was rebuilt in 1966, many of its internal spaces were drastically altered. During its full reconstruction between 1999 and 2001, cutting-edge theatre technology was installed, the gorgeous original ornamentation was restored, as was the upstairs row of balconies. Today, the theatre seats an audience of 901 in an air-conditioned venue. The antique objects from the building's previous eras - the lamp statues, the columns holding up the balconies - harmonise with the newly made colourful glass windows, the mirrors, with the nostalgic furniture of the buffet and bar, the wooden parquet and the marble staircases. The auditorium is lit by a hundred-year-old chandelier. The balconies, the gilded stucco decorations, the walls covered in velvet brocade, the allegorical statues that adorn the main entrance create a magical atmosphere that turns an evening at the theatre into a real celebration. The interior design is the work of Siklós Mária and Schinagl Gábor, The leadership of the Operetta Theatre believes it is our obligation to run this building, keeping it restored to its original beauty, using all the opportunities it provides, to make it a multifunctional cultural centre of Hungarian artistic and social life. 

TODAY
Today, under the leadership of general director Kiss-B. Atilla, it functions as a real popular musical theatre, staging Hungarian operettas and their successors, contemporary Hungarian musicals, as well as musicals for a younger audience, based on literary or historical sources. It plays 500 performances a year, to an audience of 400 000, making it one of the most popular theatres in Hungary. 

It is known all over the world that Hungarians play operetta with a peerlessly melodic, vehement and fiery attitude, with acrobatic dances, rich visuals and a shocking emotional intensity. When the Budapest Operetta Theatre first performed Die Csárdásfürstin in Germany, the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung wrote: "Many cities have venues where one can listen to good music. But operetta has only one address: Budapest, Nagymező street 17." 

The company often goes on international tours. They've visited numerous cities in numerous countries in Europe and Asia to perform operettas, musicals and galas. In the Autumn of 2011, in a fierce competition, the Budapest Operetta Theatre won the exclusive right to perform the musical adapted from one of the world's most beautiful fairy tales, The Beauty and the Beast, in German-speaking areas. Our institute holds the formal titles of Superbrands and MagyarBrands, and holds prestigious international musical competitions.