The foundation for the activity of the National Opera was laid in 1865, with the founding of the song and drama society ‘Estonia’ in Tallinn. By the initiative and on the foundation of the Society, the professional theatre company Estonia was established. In 1913, it moved to the newly built theatre house on Estonia puiestee, which is also its current location.
In the beginning of the 20th century, the local Estonian societies started building theatre and community houses in stone instead of wood as previously. They would be used by permanent professional theatre companies to conduct their activities. The locations of the buildings were chosen carefully, with a kind of premonition that new national symbols were being erected.
In 1902, the Estonian societies in Tallinn submitted a petition to the city to obtain a plot of land of 450 square fathoms for erecting a building for the Estonian societies. The petition stated that cramped conditions and the lack of technical opportunities were hindering theatre activities, and remarked that as Estonians made up over 80% of the population of Tallinn, it was time to build an Estonian theatre house.
The societies deemed that the best location would be the corner of the avenue next to the Tallinn Secondary School of Science – the place where the Estonia Theatre stands to this day.
The period 1904–1908 marked the preparations for the construction of the new theatre building. Money for the construction was raised by organising fundraisers and fêtes, with another source of funding being 25-rouble shares. The Estonia Society and the Tallinn Mutual Credit Union would become the largest shareholders, but the shareholders also included numerous private persons.
In 1906, the professional theatre company Estonia was founded on the initiative of Paul Pinna and Theodor Altermann.
In March 1908, an extraordinary general meeting of the Estonia Society was held to discuss the size and look of the future building and to make several important decisions. The consensus was that the theatre hall should seat 1,000 people and the concert hall up to 1,500.
In 1908, the Estonia Society announced an international architectural competition. None of the 17 contributions to the competition were declared the winner but the designs by the Russians Nikolai Vasilyev and Alexei Bubyr on one hand and the Finns Armas Lindgren and Wivi Lönn on the other hand shared the second place. Those names were already well known: Vasilyev and Bubyr had recently won the competition for the building of the Reval German Theatre (now the Estonian Drama Theatre) while Lindgren had designed the Vanemuine Theatre. The final decision was in the favour of the Finns, so the Estonia Society and the architects signed an agreement for commissioning the engineering drawings in September 1909.
In 1910, the formal ceremony of laying the cornerstone was cancelled and the stone was later placed in the courtyard wall. It was buried under debris during the war and was rediscovered only in 1991. Today, the stone can be seen at the restaurant of the Estonia Theatre.
The design of the Estonia theatre and concert building was completed in the winter of 1911. Lindgren designed the interior and the décor while Lönn designed the roof and the dome.
The bricklaying works for the foundation commenced in the spring of 1911. The construction manager was the distinguished engineer Karl Ipsberg who had previously worked on railway projects of the Russian Empire. Ipsberg had returned to Estonia as a rich man and he worked on the Estonia Theatre project for free.
Construction of the theatre building
As early as in November, the topping out ceremony was held where a blue flag was hoisted on the roof as a joke in defiance of the imperial power. Due to the time pressure, one end of the building was being built while the other was still being designed (metaphorically speaking). The company was in constant telegraphic and postal correspondence with Armas Lindgren in Helsinki who sent them drawings with spatial layouts.
Much of the complicated external and internal works, including strength calculations and reinforced concrete works, were performed by Finnish and Swedish companies recommended by Lindgren. For instance, one of the constructors was Kreuger & Toll, the construction company of the acclaimed Swedish engineer Ivar Kreuger, which is in business to this day. Ivar Kreuger himself made several trips to Tallinn to monitor the construction works. No such specialists were available locally. One of the major challenges was the structure of the ceiling of the theatre hall. It was constructed as a double ceiling, with the lower ceiling suspended from the dome-like roof – this solution was first used in the early 15th century when the dome of the Florence Cathedral was built.
The interior works could already be commenced in the autumn of 1911. The architect Bertel Liljequist travelled to Tallinn at Lindgren’s request, tasked with ensuring that the decoration of the building would follow the drawings.
In the meantime, there had been complaints that the building would look too ‘Finnish’, so Liljequist was sent to Tartu to study Estonian motifs at the Estonian National Museum. This resulted in Estonian-styled details being added to the interior design, such as the red ethnic belt patterns on the wall borders in the lounge. Colour schemes and furniture designs were also altered.
Theatre building, 1913
Lobby, 1913
Interior, 1913
Summer garden, 1913
The construction cost 811,416 roubles in total, of which 100,000 were obtained by collections and 700,000 as a loan secured by private property of members of the management board of the Estonia Society. The opening ceremony of the Estonia theatre and concert building was held on 24 August 1913.
The new theatre and concert building was opened on 6 September (24 August according to the Julian calendar) 1913 with Hamlet by William Shakespeare. The new building of the Estonia Theatre became the largest new building in Tallinn. The completed building included one wing for theatre performances and another for concerts. The wings were connected by a restaurant located between them. The opening celebrations lasted three days and ended with a ball in the concert hall which went on until the morning.
The first guests in 1913
Within just one year, World War I had begun and the Estonia Theatre was used as a military hospital, a pharmacy was opened in the building and the concert hall served as an Orthodox church. As the theatre hall remained unappropriated, the actors continued performing at their own expense.
Military hospital in the theatre house, a 1914
Church in the Concert hall, a 1914
The Estonia Theatre functioned as a multi-genre theatre in the style of the so-called German city theatres – it produced operas and operettas as well as ballets and drama. The professional Estonia Theatre had followed this principle from its establishment in 1906. The theatre hall of the building was constructed with the requirements of drama theatre in mind, though.
On 23 April 1919, the first Estonian Parliament – the Constituent Assembly of the Republic of Estonia – assembled in the concert hall of the Estonia Theatre.
The building of the Estonia Theatre proved too small for the theatre as early as in the 1930s. Several alterations were made, a revolving stage with equipment ordered from Germany was installed. A competition for expanding the building was held in 1931–1932. The competition was won by Erich Jacoby but the expansion never came to fruition.
The anniversary publication of the theatre from 1938 states: ‘This building has stood in the view of every inhabitant of Tallinn for twenty-five years but no one could claim that it would seem “out of date” to anyone after all these years.’ There is a sense of pride that comes with the fact the client’s detailed terms of reference enabled to create a multifaceted and functional urban space.
The theatre – which had been owned by the Estonia Society during the period of the Republic of Estonia and received financial support from the state – was nationalised by the Soviet occupation power in 1941. In the autumn of the same year, after the beginning of the German occupation, the building was returned to the Estonia Society while the theatre itself belonged to the City of Tallinn.
In the beginning, the Estonia Theatre gave six or seven performances a week; this number increased later on. The repertoire continued to include drama, opera, operetta, and ballet productions.
In the spring of 1944, the activity of the theatre was disrupted by air raids which culminated with the bombing of 9 March. The last full performance played at the Estonia Theatre was the German-language operetta Der Graf von Luxemburg by Franz Lehár on 8 March. The following day, the ballet Kratt by Eduard Tubin had to be cut short – the theatre building would shortly be destroyed in an air attack.
Theatre Estonia, 1944 after an air attack
Estonian drama troupe in front of a destroyed building, 1944
In the second half of the 1940s, renovations were carried out based on designs by the architects Alar Kotli and Edgar Johan Kuusik. Kotli’s design was inspired by the Neoclassicism of the 1930s and by the Stalinist classicism, as the times demanded. The architect tried to preserve the look of the façade on the Estonia puiestee side while completely changing the rest of the façades. The commercial and restaurant premises were omitted from the new design. The storage spaces of the market in the basement of the building were also left out. At the same time, the front of house spaces and working spaces of both the theatre hall and the concert hall were expanded, in particular the auxiliary spaces for stage equipment.
Regarding the hall, Kotli made a point of following the original layout but the interior lost its Art Nouveau features and assumed a more rigid Classicist look. The concert hall with chandeliers, designed by Alar Kotli, was completed in 1946 and the theatre hall in 1947. The ceiling of the theatre hall was decorated with a large Soviet-style painting by the prominent painters Elmar Kits, Evald Okas, and Richard Sagrits. The Estonia Theatre became a true temple of culture.
The reconstruction of the building of the Estonia Theatre would not be fully completed until 1951, and the lower part between the two halls was reconstructed into a winter garden as late as in 1991. Regardless, the theatre building, which was restored based on Alar Kotli’s and Edgar Johan Kuusik’s design, was opened on 7 November 1947 with a concert that started with the symphonic poem Dawn by Heino Eller.
The second half of the reopening celebrations included the performance of the ballet Kalevipoeg by Eugen Kapp.
The extension on the Pärnu maantee side, the five-storey, eight-metres-wide wing for staff premises, was completed by 1951.
Restoration efforts after the war
The Estonia Theatre underwent several renovations in the 1970s and 1980s which were plagued by constant setbacks.
During the 1990s and 2000s, the theatre building was renovated under the management of the architect Peep Jänes. The renovation was mostly aimed at replacing the roofs and designing new spaces in the attic. 800 m2 of space was added to the theatre.
The building is still owned by the Estonia Theatre and it houses three independent organisations: the National Opera in one wing and Eesti Kontsert and the Estonian National Symphony Orchestra in the other.
In 2021, the parliamentary Cultural Affairs Committee added the extension of the Estonia Theatre to the list of cultural buildings to be financed from the Cultural Endowment of Estonia. The volume analysis submitted to the Cultural Affairs Committee reviewed a solution where the existing unutilised inner courtyard would be replaced by the backstage of a new opera hall, which would be connected to the stage complex of the old building on the same level. This would allow the theatre staff to continue using most of the current backstage technical facilities. At the same time, new access routes and adequate connections would be established to modernise the internal logistics in relation to sets.
With the addition of hall space on the second floor, the two parts, new and old, are organically connected, creating the heart of the theatre, a unique backstage system. This enables to integrate a large proportion of the existing building and its spaces into the new complex. The hall including front of house spaces can be placed in the historic New Market where the Monument to the Revolution of 1905 by Lembit Paluteder will remain in its current location in the small green area on the side towards the Drama Theatre. The so-called Päts Square with the by now well-known monument will be located between the park pavilion and the entrance of the new theatre building.
Text by: Piret Verte, Jaak Jõekallas, Marion Leppik
References:
Jaan Kärner, „Estonia” kuuskümmend aastat. – T. E. S. Estonia, Tallinn 1925.
„Estonia” teatri- ja kontserthoone ajalugu. Compiled by Hugo Peets. Estonia, Tallinn 1938.
Agnes Toomla, ‘Estonia teatri ooperi- ja operetilavastused Saksa okupatsiooni ajal (1941–1944): teatri toimimine, repertuaar ja retseptsioon’ – Res Musica 2013, pp. 24–56.