Maxim Gorki Theater
theatre in Berlin
The Maxim Gorki Theater is a theatre in Berlin-Mitte named after the Soviet writer Maxim Gorky. In 2012, the Mayor of Berlin Klaus Wowereit named Şermin Langhoff as the artist director of the theatre.
History
It is the oldest concert hall building in Berlin. The building was built on behalf of the Sing-Akademie zu Berlin, which was founded by Carl Friedrich Christian Fasch in 1791. In the years between 1825 and 1827, under its former director Carl Friedrich Zelter, he set up his own concert hall and his own home. Design and execution were done by junior architect Carl Theodor Ottmer, using plans of the architect Karl Friedrich Schinkel in the classical style.
Between 1827 and 1828, Alexander von Humboldt gave his Cosmos lectures here. On March 11, 1829, the first performance of a revival of St Matthew Passion by JS Bach performed by the Sing Academy under the direction of Felix Mendelssohn. In the summer of 1848, the building was used as the venue of the Prussian National Assembly.
During the Second World War, the building was badly damaged stopping performances of Sing-Akademie.
Begin with the source’s own compact description: “Maxim Gorki Theater” is theatre in Berlin. The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through Maxim, Gorki and Theater, not as a finished interpretation.
Why this record matters
The phrase “theatre in Berlin” supplies a clear boundary for inquiry. It also exposes the unanswered questions: who defined that boundary, when it became stable and which sources sit outside it.
Attribution, date and provenance are strongest when supported by the original work, a catalogue record and documented transmission. The source revision retrieved here is dated Aug 30, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q460259. Authority coordinates are 52.519, 13.395. 2 of 2 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 2012, 1791, 1825 and 1827.
Later fame can flatten the distinction between original context, subsequent adaptation and institutional collecting history. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.
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This entry incorporates text from “Maxim Gorki Theater” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.