The Grand Theatre in Warsaw is one of the largest Opera houses in the world. It occupies an entire block between the Castle Square and the Saxon Garden.
The Grand Opera House was built in Warsaw in the period from 1825 to 1833. Since 1815, the Kingdom of Poland became part of the Russian Empire. Tsarevich Konstantin, the second son of the Russian Emperor Paul I, who was considered the heir to the throne after Alexander I, became the viceroy of the Kingdom of Poland. He married the Polish Countess Jeanette Grudzinska, abdicated and stayed in Warsaw.
Konstantin paid much attention to the development of art and initiated the construction of the Grand Opera Theater in Warsaw, which was significantly larger than the Bolshoi Theater in Moscow. These theaters have architectural similarities, but the Moscow Bolshoi Theater has one colonnade with a portico, and the Grand Theater in Warsaw has a double colonnade.
The theater building was designed by the Italian architect Antonio Corratz in the classical style. On both sides of the main building there are two wings, due to which the total length of the facade of the theater reaches 170 meters. The Main Hall accommodates 1,840 spectators, and the Small Hall accommodates 250 spectators.
On both sides of the main entrance to the Warsaw Grand Theater there are sculptures of outstanding Polish cultural figures: composer Stanislaw Moniuszko and Wojciech Bogustawski, who is considered the founder of Polish theatrical art.
The Grand Theater, like all other houses of the Old Town of Warsaw, was completely destroyed by German troops during the suppression of the Polish Uprising in 1944. The theater was restored in the period from 1945 to 1965.
