The building at Rynek 10 in Katowice was opened as the German Municipal Theatre, then became a Polish theatre with two stages, and today it is the largest drama stage in Upper Silesia. It has lived through three states, several names and several rebuildings of the facade. It received the name of Stanisław Wyspiański only a little under thirty years after opening.

Built on the site of the first town hall

The decision to build a municipal theatre was taken in 1898. The state provided only a third of the funds needed, so construction was financed from a state subsidy (160,000 marks), the city (475,000 marks) and private funds (65,000 marks). Work lasted from 1906 to 1907. The building stood on the eastern frontage of the Market Square in Katowice, on the site of the first town hall, which had been adapted from a garden villa and which had a small prison at the back.

The author of the design was Carl Moritz, a government master builder, and according to other sources an architect from Cologne, appearing as Karl Moritz. He is said to be the author of the designs for the opera house in Cologne and for theatres in Barmen and Bochum. The description of the theatre speaks of a neoclassical style, whereas in the list of monuments on the Market Square the same building is described as erected in the modernist style. The sources therefore describe the style of the building differently.

The auditorium originally had 800 seats. The top of the facade was decorated with bas-reliefs referring to scenes from Wagner's “The Ring of the Nibelung”, and the tympanum bore the inscription “Deutschem Wort - deutscher Art”, that is “To the German word - to German art”. The theatre was inaugurated on 2 October 1907 with Friedrich Schiller's “Wilhelm Tell”. The first director was Emanuel Raul, chosen in a competition from among nine candidates. The actors then made a solemn promise that Polish words would never be heard from the stage.

A Polish theatre from 1922

After Katowice was incorporated into Poland in 1922, the city handed the building over on a free lease to the Society of Friends of the Polish Theatre, formed on 15 July 1922 on the initiative of Feliks Bocheński. The drama stage of the Polish Theatre opened on 7 October 1922 with Lucjan Rydel's “Królewski jedynak” (The King's Only Son), and a day later the opera stage was opened with Moniuszko's “Halka”. The opera was closed down in 1932 for financial reasons. In the first years the hall was also used by a German theatre, which under the agreement had about 30 per cent of performance days at its disposal.

Stability came only when the opera singer Marian Sobański took over as director in 1927, together with the patronage of Voivode Michał Grażyński. In 1928 the world premiere of Stanisław Ligoń's “Wesele na Górnym Śląsku” (A Wedding in Upper Silesia), a folk spectacle that was staged more than a hundred times, took place here. The theatre also toured with productions to the German part of Upper Silesia; in April 1929 in Opole the actors and management were beaten up by German paramilitary groups.

Where the name of Wyspiański comes from

Stanisław Wyspiański died on 28 November 1907 in Kraków, less than two months after the Katowice building opened. The patronage came much later. On 17 September 1936 the Polish Theatre was renamed the Stanisław Wyspiański Theatre, and this was marked by a premiere of “Wyzwolenie” (Liberation) directed by Leopold Kielanowski. In October 1937 a bust of the patron by Wincenty Chorembalski was unveiled in the foyer. In 1939-1945 the theatre was German again.

After the war the name was settled anew: on 6 October 1945 the institution was renamed the Stanisław Wyspiański Silesian Theatre, and its first director was Bronisław Dąbrowski. In September 1945 the theatre took in the company of the Polish Drama Theatre from Lviv.

Postwar decades and rebuildings

In 1954-1956 the artistic director was the thirty-one-year-old Gustaw Holoubek, who invited artists from outside the official mainstream to collaborate, among them Tadeusz Kantor. In 1957 Jerzy Jarocki made his official directing debut here. In the 1960s the voivodeship authorities favoured “theatre for the masses” and a light repertoire, and the theatre lost its position as one of Poland's leading stages. In 1967-1971 Mieczysław Górkiewicz tried to build a “Silesian national stage” here.

The facade changed with the eras. In the interwar period the bas-reliefs were removed, in the early 1970s the sculptures from the niches between the windows were dismantled and the steps were rebuilt, eliminating the ornamental lamps. In 1976 the text “Teatr im. St. Wyspiańskiego” was placed on the ribbon on the tympanum, where the German inscription had earlier been. The building was entered in the heritage register on 30 December 1991. A general renovation in 1997-2000 returned the sculptures to the niches. During the later rebuilding of the market square the shape of the steps was changed once more and the Theatre Square in front of the building was recreated.

Today the theatre plays on three stages. The Main Stage has 438 seats in the stalls and two balconies. The Chamber Stage was created in 1981 to replace the earlier Small Stage, which burned down, and has 88 seats. The Malarnia Stage, established in 1992 in a former Masonic lodge at Teatralna 2, has 95 seats. One of the theatre's lines of work is repertoire in the Silesian ethnolect. The 1928 premiere of “Wesele na Górnym Śląsku” and later productions of Silesian texts form part of the same line.

Other theatres of the region

Katowice has several other stages in the centre. The Rialto Cinema-Theatre on św. Jana street has operated since 15 January 1913 and besides films hosts concerts and plays. The Ateneum Silesian Puppet and Actor Theatre has existed since 1945 and is among the oldest puppet companies in Poland, while the Teatr Bez Sceny, a small theatre founded in 1997, is located on 3 Maja street. Further on, in the Załęże district, the independent Teatr Żelazny plays, run by an association founded in 2011.

In other towns of the region the histories are just as changeable. The Municipal Theatre in Gliwice was founded on 11 October 1952 as the Silesian Operetta, a branch of the Silesian Opera in Bytom, and later changed names and profile. The Teatr Rozrywki in Chorzów has operated since 1 January 1985 in a building that before the war was the Graf Reden hotel, and then the home of a German theatre and a cultural centre. The Children of the Basin Theatre in Będzin has its roots in a children's theatre in Sosnowiec in 1945-1946, and since 22 July 1950 has played in Będzin. Banialuka in Bielsko-Biała, founded in 1947 by visual artists, is housed in a building from 1934, erected as a Jewish cultural centre. The Teatr Mały in Tychy stands in a building from 1962-1965 that began as a works cultural centre at the Ziemowit mine.