Szlak JelonkówJelenia Góra Town Trail · the short route
Cyprian Kamil Norwid Theatre
This building exists because seven townspeople decided a town without a theatre was incomplete – and asked their neighbours for money. They collected more than was needed. A hundred and twenty years later the building on aleja Wojska Polskiego is still playing, and once a year it sends its actors out into the streets and squares of the centre. Along the way something happened to it that you will not read on any plaque: the first costumes of the Polish company came here from the Berlin Opera – and not by purchase.
Seven townspeople and 313 thousand marks
The first to say that Jelenia Góra needed a theatre was mayor Arthur Hartung. It would probably have stayed talk, had seven residents not submitted a memorandum to the town hall in 1901 proposing a building for theatre and assemblies, and appealed to the town and the region for financial support. About three hundred thousand marks were reckoned necessary. By the end of 1904 the account held three hundred and thirteen thousand. The whole thing, with fittings, cost close to four hundred thousand.
That figure is worth pausing on, because it says something about the town: the building was not given by the authorities or founded by one rich man. The residents clubbed together, in the years of the greatest pre-war prosperity, when roughly a third of all the tenements and public buildings that survive in Jelenia Góra today were going up.
A House of Art and Associations, not just a stage
Building began in May 1903, carried out by the Albert brothers’ firm, and it was ready at the turn of 1904 and 1905. The ceremonial consecration took place on 6 October 1904.
The name said plainly what it was meant to be: Kunst- und Vereinshaus, the House of Art and Associations. Beside the auditorium there were restaurant and exhibition rooms and a beer hall. It was a community centre and a social club in one, with theatre as one of its functions – only in time did the name Stadttheater stick to it. That is worth remembering, because it explains the layout: from the start the building was meant to send people in several directions at once.
The stage measures 10.5 by 17 metres, with a proscenium opening 6 metres high and 10.5 wide. The auditorium originally held 671 seats: 337 in the stalls and 162 and 69 on two balconies. After 1933 extra chairs brought it to 708.
Jelenia Góra Art Nouveau – what you see from the pavement
The design was drawn up by the sculptor and architect Alfred Daehmel, and the result is described today as an example of “Jelenia Góra Art Nouveau” – a local variant of the style, quieter here than in Vienna or Łódź.
Standing opposite the facade, look at three things. First the arches: doors and windows have no sharp corners, everything is softly rounded. Second the stuccowork – floral motifs, the standard vegetation of Art Nouveau. Third the masks, full of allusions to antique sculpture; it is they that give the elevation its theatrical tone before you have even gone in.
If you get inside for a performance, the same principle of rounding returns in the passages and the tiers, which seem to flow around the auditorium. This is not a box with ornament stuck on – here shape and decoration speak one language.
Costumes from the Berlin Opera
The most interesting thing that happened to this building was in 1945, and it is on no plaque. During the war the costumes of the Berlin Opera were stored here. When a Polish acting company arrived in the town, those costumes and the sets became its first technical equipment. Polish theatre in Jelenia Góra thus began in somebody else’s clothes – and not just anybody’s.
The first performance was Aleksander Fredro’s “Revenge”, played on 23 August 1945 and directed by Stefania Domańska. The official opening, by then as the Provincial Theatre, followed on 26 October. The pace of those months is hard to grasp today: between August 1945 and May 1946 fourteen premieres were prepared. In 1950 the theatre was nationalised as the State Lower Silesian Theatre, and it has borne the name of Cyprian Kamil Norwid since 1974.
A theatre that goes out into the street
Adam Hanuszkiewicz, Kazimierz Dejmek, Krystian Lupa and Henryk Tomaszewski have all passed through this stage. In 1976 the company took Molière’s “Don Juan” to Latin America and brought back a prize from Caracas.
For the town, though, something else proved more important. Since 1968 the Jelenia Góra Theatre Meetings have been held here, and in 1983 the theatre’s director Alina Obidniak founded the International Street Theatre Festival – which now bears her name and is the oldest street theatre festival in Poland. It takes place every July. Since then the Town Hall Square and the main streets of the centre turn into a stage each summer – and that is the moment when the theatre stops being a building and becomes something you can walk into by accident on your way to buy bread.
The rebuilding that brought back a curtain
Between 2017 and 2019 the building underwent a comprehensive rebuilding: repair of the floors, new windows and doors, new floors and technical galleries in the stage tower, conservation of historic elements, new lighting, sound and stage machinery. The design came from Cezary Furmanek’s studio in Łódź, the work was done by Castellum of Wrocław.
Two things are worth taking from that. The first is practical: the building got a lift and an auditorium adapted for people with disabilities, so the monument stopped excluding anyone. The second is for theatre connoisseurs: a Wagner curtain was installed, a solution very rarely seen in Polish theatres – instead of rising or drawing to the sides, it opens diagonally, with two wings lifting upwards.
The whole investment cost 15,893,850.79 złoty, of which 4,910,371.35 came from European funds and 10,983,479.44 from the town budget. The stage reopened on 28 September 2019 with Fredro’s “Ladies and Hussars” – Fredro again, as in 1945.
What you can see
The building has been a listed monument since 4 April 1980. From outside you can look at it at any hour, and the elevation is the main course here. The interior is visited in the natural way: by buying a ticket. If you are in town in midsummer, check the dates of the street theatre festival – the best view of this theatre is then not from a seat but from the town hall steps.
Frequently asked questions
Can you go inside outside performance times? The building is not open for tours like a museum. You see the interior when you come to a performance – and it is worth arriving early to look at the foyer and the staircases.
Who designed the theatre? Alfred Daehmel, sculptor and architect. Building to his design began in May 1903 and the hall was consecrated on 6 October 1904; finishing work continued into early 1905. The building is regarded as an example of what is called Jelenia Góra Art Nouveau.
Why “Jelenia Góra Art Nouveau”? It is a term for the local variant of the style, visible in the town on several buildings from the early twentieth century: softly arched openings, floral stuccowork and masks alluding to antique sculpture, all more restrained than Viennese Art Nouveau.
What is a Wagner curtain? A curtain that opens diagonally, with two wings lifted upwards, instead of the classic rise or side draw. It is very rarely found in Polish theatres; in Jelenia Góra it appeared with the rebuilding completed in 2019.
When was the first Polish performance staged here? On 23 August 1945 – Fredro’s “Revenge”, directed by Stefania Domańska, in the costumes left in the building by the Berlin Opera.
What else is nearby
The theatre is the tenth stop on the route and already stands outside the old town, on aleja Wojska Polskiego. Going back towards the centre you reach the Town Hall Square – the stage this theatre occupies every July. In the other direction, ten minutes away, is the Karkonosze Museum, the next stop, and beyond it the Time Gates underground.
A thread for another trip: in 1995 this theatre hosted a session in memory of Gerhart Hauptmann – the Nobel laureate whose house in Jagniątków closes the long trail.
Right in front of the theatre stands the stag Teatralny – thirty metres from the door. Closer to the centre are Freblusie and Wiolinek.
