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The doors of the National Theatre of Bucharest remain open!
On a festive day, the doors of the National Theatre of Bucharest remain open to the audience. The theatre will be open for visits and those who choose December 1st will have the opportunity to sign up for the 1000th guided tour!
Guided tours, a video projection on the theatre's façade, immortal lyrics and an invitation to an online event, an opportunity to reflect on major moments in recent history, make up the programme for 1 December 2021 at NTB.
From 2013 to date, the NTB Guided Tour project has attracted tens of thousands of participants. The idea started from the desire to get the public acquainted with the unseen face of the largest theatre in Romania and South-East Europe, as the National Theatre of Bucharest looks after its reconfiguration and rehabilitation. The guided tours are a real highlight in the NTB "calendar" for those who come to see the building inside, where they have the opportunity to discover otherwise inaccessible places and learn a lot of interesting things about the life of the theatre today and yesterday.
Of the six directors who, after 1969, defined the NTB strategy and focused, with commitment, on the development of the National, only two of them also took on the role of founders. When Radu Beligan was appointed manager of the National, the site of the new NTB had not yet been completed. When Ion Caramitru came to manage the NTB, following a competition, the theatre had to be rebuilt and reimagined, transformed into a theatre of the present, to 21st century standards. You will find out the secrets of the building and its reconstruction in the 1000th TNB Guided Tour, which will focus on and be dedicated to the memory of the two managers Radu Beligan and Ion Caramitru.
The guided tours started as early as the reconstruction, on "Master Beligan’s" birthday (14 December 2013), when the Studio Hall refurbishment was completed and the premiere of the show "Gossip, Rumours and Lies" took place.
Over the past eight years, the NTB Guided Tours have been attended by Prince Charles of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, theatre directors from Romania and abroad, ambassadors from many countries around the world. Among the visitors, there were also many young people - students of architecture, directing, scenography, acting, students of schools and high schools in Bucharest, etc. In April 2018, the NTB Guided Tour reached a record. A total of 149 Romanian language teachers from high schools visited the National Theatre building.
NTB will also be present online on December 1st, by broadcasting on NTB's Youtube channel one of the most exciting lectures in the well-known National Theatre Lecture series, based on the speech given by Ion Caramitru on 18 February 1992 in the Grand Committee Room of the House of Commons in London, entitled The Limits of Expectation. The lecture was recorded on 28 January 2007 at the National Theatre of Bucharest, shortly after Romania's entry into the European Union.
At the entrance to the “Ion Caramitru” Hall, verses from Eminescu's lyrics will be uttered by some of the great actors of the first stage: George Vraca, Gheorghe Cozorici, Mircea Albulescu, Ovidiu Iuliu Moldovan, George Calboreanu, Leopoldina Bălănuță, Ion Caramitru, Ilinca Tomoroveanu. On the façade of the "Ion Caramitru" Hall of the NTB will be projected sequences from the feature film Untamed Romania, captured by an extraordinary film crew who wanted to show the whole world the natural beauty of Romania. An Auchan project, the documentary had its premiere in March 2018, right at the National Theatre of Bucharest. The film, which also has an international version, has had screenings with audiences in over 30 countries on four continents.
Translated by Simona Nichiteanu
