Amadeo's theatre

Overview

Amadeo’s theatre was named after its founder Anton Amade de Varkony, Hungarian count and notable county prefect of Zagreb. Amadeo’s theatre was situated in the former Blatna (Mud) and Kazališna (Theatre) Street, which afterwards got the name Demetrova. The building in which it was situated is now the Croatian Natural History Museum and, from 2000, the home of the Amadeo Theatre and Music Company.

Amadeo’s theatre was a public theatre which was rented by its owner to a contractor – the principal of the theatrical group with the highest offer. Posters, tickets, announcements and advertisements were printed for plays and other events. Based on these grounds, Amadeo’s theatre can be considered as the first public theatre in Zagreb.

Language of performances

The plays in Amadeo's theatre were performed almost exclusively in the German language. In 1832 and 1833 German players in Amadeo’s theatre performed the first public and professional plays in the Croatian Kajkavian dialect. Dragutin Rakovac (1813–1854) translated two comedies by Kotzebue on Kajkavian, and Josef Schweigert, director and actor of a German group who was performing at the theatre at the time, portrayed the following plays:

All plays were acted by German actors who were not apt to perform on the Croatian Kajkavian dialect.

Repertoire

A collective German language repertoire with standard features of the Austrian province of the time was portrayed in Amadeo's theatre: dramas, operas, ballets and a special kind of uncomplicated plays with singing sections which later developed into an operetta called Singspiel. At the beginning of the 19th century, the occurrence of writers pertaining to the Vienna circle, who marked the beginning of the Vienna folk theatre with their works, is becoming more and more frequent, and without them it would be impossible to imagine the genesis of the Croatian folk play.

In the Croatian theatrical history, Amadeo’s theatre had a primarily educational role.