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Theater Aachen

theatre and opera house in Aachen, Germany

Manuscripts, fine bindings, an engraving plate and preserved performance ephemera
Arts and lettersInterpretive dossier study · Crown Archives visual atlas
Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionAug 31, 2026
Entity authorityQ118434104
Source-derived summary

Theater Aachen is a theatre in Aachen, Germany. It is the principal venue in that city for operas, musical theatre and plays. It is the home of the Sinfonieorchester Aachen. The original project was by Johann Peter Cremer, later altered by Karl Friedrich Schinkel. Construction on the original theatre began in 1822 and it opened on 15 May 1825. A bomb attack on 14 July 1943 destroyed the first theatre, and the current structure was inaugurated on 23 December 1951 with a performance of Richard Wagner's Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg.

Conductors

The conductors of the theatre have also been Generalmusikdirektor of Aachen:

1920–1935 Peter Raabe

1935–1942 Herbert von Karajan

1942–1944 Paul van Kempen

1946–1953 Felix Raabe

1953–1958 Wolfgang Sawallisch

1958–1962 Hans Walter Kämpfel

1962–1974 Wolfgang Trommer

1974–1983 Gabriel Chmura

1984–1990 Yoram David

1990–1992 Bruce Ferden

1993–1996 Yukio Kitahara

1997–2002 Elio Boncompagni

2002–2012 Marcus Bosch

2012–2017 Kazem Abdullah

2017–2018 Justus Thorau

2018-2026 Christopher Ward

since 2026 Levente Török.

Editorial summary

The public source identifies “Theater Aachen” as theatre and opera house in Aachen, Germany. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Theater, Aachen and theatre.

Editorial reviewA productive route into publication, performance and collection histories when the underlying object or edition remains clearly identified. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—1822, 1825, 1943, 1951—that can be checked directly. The selected authority fields contribute no independent date. Its value is orientation rather than verdict, with Theater, Aachen and theatre providing the first useful test.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

A short description can identify a subject without explaining its stakes. For “Theater Aachen”, the useful work is to connect “theatre and opera house in Aachen, Germany” to the records capable of establishing context and consequence.

Evidence profile

Reception evidence should be dated and situated: later canonical status may differ sharply from the work’s initial circulation. The source revision retrieved here is dated Aug 31, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q118434104. Authority coordinates are 50.773, 6.087. 1 of 2 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1822, 1825, 1943 and 1951.

Critical limits

Rights, attribution and provenance may remain disputed even when a general reference summary presents a stable account. The source lead contains qualifying language; that uncertainty should survive quotation, summary and reuse. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

How to read it

Separate the work, its editions or performances, and its later reception. Catalogue records, publication histories and object files often preserve different parts of that story.

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  • Tracing reception history
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Three-step research path

  1. Establish the record: confirm the title “Theater Aachen”, its source revision and the description used here.
  2. Expand the search: follow Theater Aachen primary sources, Theater Aachen archive and Theater research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
  3. Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.

Questions for further research

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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from Theater Aachen” 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.