Mac Rating: 5.00 | Votes: 1 | Date: 02/07/2026 23:44:00

The Phantom of the Opera, Les Miserables and the rest of the international musical canon have their Danish home in a lavish 1908 playhouse tucked into a courtyard off Gammel Kongevej. Det Ny Teater ("the New Theatre") opened on 19 September 1908 with a Napoleon comedy whose cast included the soon-to-be silent film icon Asta Nielsen and Poul Reumert; the building was drawn by architects L.P. Gudme and Ludvig Andersen, a collaboration so fraught it ended in arbitration and Andersen's expulsion from the architects' association for uncollegial conduct. With 12,000 square metres and more than 1,000 seats on the main stage, it ranks among Denmark's largest theatres, and its neo-baroque auditorium is regularly described as one of Europe's most complete classical theatre interiors. By 1990, though, the house was so worn down it closed indefinitely; former director Niels-Bo Valbro, co-director Bent Mejding and the owning Ida Lofberg Foundation raised roughly 80 million kroner for a top-to-bottom restoration, and the reopening in 1994 won the EU's Europa Nostra heritage prize the following year. Since 1994 the theatre has operated as Denmark's only privately run major theatre and one of its most visited, specialising in large-scale international musicals produced at West End standard, supplemented by smaller productions in the Sceneriet and Balletsalen studio spaces and one-off concert and talk events on the big stage. The address on Gammel Kongevej sits on the Vesterbro-Frederiksberg border, ten minutes' walk from the Central Station and Vesterbro's restaurant streets. The opening production on 19 September 1908 was Pierre Berton's Napoleon comedy "Den skonne Marseillanerinde" ("The Beautiful Marseillaise"), and the house has stayed close to Danish popular culture ever since - scenes from the 1951 film classic "Mod mig paa Cassiopeia" were shot here, and the building appears in the beloved TV series Matador. Tickets sell online, by phone and at the box office on Gammel Kongevej.