Nationaltheater Mannheim

Mannheim entered Mozart's biography before its theatre existed. He spent the winter of 1777/78 in the city, admired a court orchestra his father called the best in Europe, and fell in love with the singer Aloysia Weber, whose sister Constanze he would later marry. The Nationaltheater opened in 1779 and wrote German stage history on 13 January 1782, when Schiller's Die Räuber had its premiere there with the young playwright in the audience.

Bombs destroyed the old building in September 1943. Gerhard Weber's modernist replacement opened at Goetheplatz in 1957, inaugurated with Der Freischütz in the opera house and Die Räuber in the playhouse. That building is currently closed for a complete renovation, so opera has moved to OPAL, an interim venue at Luisenpark. Mozart remains the house signature: the theatre celebrates Mannheim's Mozart tradition with several of his operas each year, and its festival Mannheimer Sommer opened in June 2026 with a new Zauberflöte staged by Cordula Däuper.

On stage here

Performance dates

Data: open sources (opera houses, ticketing platforms, Wikidata). Part of the worldwide Die Zauberflöte map.