Grand Théâtre

This is Luxembourg's main stage for opera, dance and theatre, at the Rond-Point Robert Schuman on the edge of Limpertsberg, between the Glacis and the Red Bridge.

For nearly a century before it, the city's theatre was the Théâtre des Capucins in the old town, a converted monastery church. In December 1958 the city launched a competition for a real theatre, hoping to have it ready for the millennium of Luxembourg in 1963. A Parisian architect, Alain Bourbonnais, won it; work started in the autumn of 1959, the millennium came and went, and the building opened on the 15th of April 1964 as the Théâtre Municipal.

It has hosted the Eurovision Song Contest twice, in 1973 and again in 1984 — both times because Luxembourg had won the year before, which a country of this size has managed five times. By the turn of the century the stage machinery could no longer cope with what touring companies brought, there was asbestos to remove, and in 2002 and 2003 the whole building was refitted inside while the 1960s architecture outside was left exactly as it was.

There is no national opera company here. What the Grand Théâtre does instead is co-produce with the houses that have one — the English National Opera, La Monnaie in Brussels, the Opéra Comique in Paris — and bring in the dance companies that tour: Nederlands Dans Theater, Anne Teresa De Keersmaeker. The main house seats 943; performances run in French, German or English with surtitles.