Poland - Warsaw
Teatr Wielki - The Grand Theater

For 170 years Teatr Wielki (the Grand Theater), today called the Grand Theater – National Opera, has been Poland’s grandest opera and ballet institution. It’s building was erected in 1825-1833 to designs by the Italian architect Antonio Corazzi of Liverno for the companies of national opera, ballet and drama active at the time in Warsaw.

According to the plans of Antonio Corazzi, which were submitted for execution in 1825, the façade of the Grand Theater was supposed to be decorated at the front with a triumphal sculpture of Apollo, patron of the arts, driving a chariot drawn by four horses. The outbreak and ultimate defeat of the November Uprising meant the idea was never carried out. At the order of the Russian field marshal, the idea to crown the building with the sculpture of this quadriga was a banded, the aim being to deduct from the dignity of the national theater’s new seat. The ample pedestal at the top of the main façade of the Grand Theater building remained empty for close to two centuries.

The time finally came for the Third Republic of Poland to fill the centuries-old gap in the architectural image of Teatralny Square. At the initiative of the Grand Theater – National Opera’s general director Waldemar Dabrowski, the sculpture envisaged many years ago finally adorns the Grand Theater’s façade 177 years later. The new, contemporary quadriga was designed by professors from the Warsaw Academy of Fine Arts. The sculpture was unveiled by Polish President Aleksander Kwasniewski on 3 May 2002 to mark Constitution Day.

The Grand Theater has two halls: the Main Auditorium, which seats 1,841, and the Emil Mlynarski Auditorium, which seats 248. The former Ballrooms on the first floor, facing Teatralny Square, contain Poland’s only Theatre Museum. In front of the building there are two statues by Jan Szczepowski of Wojciech Boguslawski, the father of Polish National Theatre, and of Stanislaw Moniuszko, the father of Polish National Opera.