After 40 years of wandering, the Frankfurt Chamber Opera is settling down.

The independent ensemble, which was founded in 1982 by Rainer Pudenz and has been directed by him since then, and which is known to a broad audience through the summer opera performances in the concert shell of the Palmengarten, will be accommodated in the cultural work "Die Fabrik" in Sachsenhausen and there from 2024 onwards the ones that have been completed by then Theater hall with a hundred performances a year.

A contract with the Peter Paul and Emmy Wagner-Heinz Foundation, which owns the building and site of the former mineral oil factory and which has been organizing a program there in the vaulted cellar since 2004, including world music, jazz and chansons as well as exhibitions and readings, provides for that the Chamber Opera may use the premises made available to it, including the rehearsal stage, rent-free until 2045.

Guido Holze

Editor in the Rhein-Main-Zeitung.

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The cultural foundation is investing a total of four million euros in the measures.

The start of construction for the theater and concert hall, which will offer 165 seats with a small gallery, is in autumn.

The conversion should be completed by the end of 2023.

It requires the removal of a floor ceiling in the listed brick building built in 1883.

The restaurateur Oliver Hill, who also offers cultural events and runs a restaurant with a café and beer garden, is also a leaseholder on the former factory site on the Mittlerer Hasenpfad.

Performances remain in the palm garden

There has been talk for more than 15 years that the chamber opera could have a permanent venue in the factory.

As founder director Rainer Pudenz says, he had long been in contact with Emmy Wagner-Heinz, who founded the foundation for the promotion of art and culture as well as cultural workers in need in 2004, before she died at an advanced age.

In the domicile, which is now within reach according to various plans, the independent opera ensemble wants to play much more than before.

According to Pudenz, the number of 40 performances per year should increase to one hundred, above all by playing three new productions ten to 15 times.

There will also be concerts, song recitals and programs centered around the composers of the operas.

Pudenz promised that summer production in the Palmengarten would continue.

It will always be shown in the factory in progress afterwards.

So far, the chamber opera has always used changing venues.

The Finkenhof hall, the Unity Lodge, the Naxos Hall, the University of Applied Sciences, the Unitarian Consecration Hall and the Cantate Hall were among them.

The chamber opera “survived the restrictions on performance as a result of the pandemic reasonably well”, as Pudenz says, also thanks to the support of foundations.

In the summer there was a lot of play in the palm garden, and the 20 small concerts in the vaccination center were very well received.

Rehearsals are currently underway for the world premiere of the opera "Der Antichrist" by Andrea Cavallari based on Friedrich Nietzsche, which is to take place on March 19 in the Unitarian Consecration Hall.