Steintor Variete

A horse dealer's riding hall of 1868 lies underneath everything that has since happened on this site. It served as a stopgap city theatre in the mid-1880s, then opened as a variety house on 1 February 1889 — the date on which the claim rests that it is the oldest variety theatre anywhere. Operetta took over after 1914; through the 1920s the building was by turns cinema, wrestling arena and variety stage; the war closed it. Private owners have run it since November 1996 and have brought back the flooring, stucco and stage decoration of 1889, with the façade remade in 2013 after its likely appearance in the twenties. Some 1,200 seats now face a stage that still takes revue, variety and touring galas, among them the travelling tenor evening Die Nacht der 5 Tenöre.