Theater auf der Wieden

The Freihaustheater stood from 1787 to 1801 in the courtyard of the Freihaus on the Wieden, a vast bourgeois apartment complex just outside Vienna's old walls. It was run by Emanuel Schikaneder, a flamboyant impresario and librettist – and it was here, on 30 September 1791, that the curtain first rose on Mozart's Magic Flute. Schikaneder himself played Papageno. The opera was given 223 times in this house alone, establishing its place in the repertoire. In 1801 Schikaneder moved the troupe to the larger Theater an der Wien, and the suburban house was closed and later demolished. Today only a plaque on the residential block marks the spot. For those tracing Viennese operatic history, this is the true birthplace of one of the most-performed works ever written.