Tragic Vienna - Fire at the Opera
Dear Alexandre,
I don’t know, if you ever sat in the 41 tram and rode it to its final station in Pötzleinsdorf. If you do that you get out at the entry of the Pötzleinsdorfer Schlosspark – a pretty tongue twister for English speakers as yourself. It is a beautiful park with wild meadows , surrounded by forest and it is likely to spot some deer during a visit. Besides a small little temple there is some unique artwork on display, just standing in the landscape. Four statues, depicting four singers with different voices soprano, alto, tenor and bass. An unusual display you might think, when you see them. Those four statues used to be part of a famous building, that Vienna has lost and they witnessed one of the biggest tragedies the city had to go through outside the wars. Today I want to tell you about the Ringtheater and the horrible catastrophe that changed our laws.
The Ringtheater was a beautiful building and as the name suggests it stood on the ring street, on Schottenring 7 to be precise, kind of opposite of today's Börse (stock market). It’s official name was “Komische Oper”, the comical opera, which gives a hint on what kind of plays were staged in this theater. On 8th December 1881, the night of the catastrophe, Jacques Offenbach’s “The tales of Hoffmann” should have been played, but it never even started. As the theater filled up with people, the audience had no idea that behind the curtain a fire had started. To read about that fire is to read about a chain of unfortunate mishaps and failures. It was a fireman who lit up the gas lamp, that started the fire. Something was wrong with the ignition mechanic so that the gas could spread out and exploded at the second try to light the lamp. The fire quickly spread out to the fly system. Still, the audience was not informed to leave the theater, whilst the actors fled in panic through the back door. That something was wrong could only be noticed, when the gas lights went out. That was on purpose to prevent more gas explosions. But the oil lamps that should act as emergency lights were not filled up to safe money. They were only filled for inspections. And because of a malfunction two days prior, the water was turned off, so there was nothing available to put the fire out.
The auditorium was in darkness, but probably not for long. The Kurtine, an early form of the iron curtains you find in modern theaters had not been closed properly. The fire hungrily grew into the auditorium. The panic inside that walls must have been pure horror. Did you know that now all exit doors in public buildings must open outward? Can you guess why that law was put into place after the tragic fire in this theater? Not being able to open the doors in the panic that arose quickly - a dark room full of people fighting for their lives - the only lights coming from the hell fire and its raging storm, sucking all the oxygen in, burning people alive, suffocating the rest with its black blanket of death – a horror scenario indeed. And outside? People who rushed there to help were told “Alles gerettet!”, “Everything saved”. Why the police thought so, is unclear to me, but you can imagine what size of scandal that caused. Around 400 people died that evening, maybe more. It was a tragedy that shook the city – the whole country I can imagine.
After this tragedy, a lot changed. To this day, for example, a fire safety professional has to sit in at every theater production, no matter how small. Props have to be sprayed with fire repellant and big theaters need an iron curtain to separate the backstage area from the auditorium. As mentioned all doors of public buildings and emergency exits have to be able to be pushed outward from the inside. Also, Vienna got its first professional fire brigade, which is the reason why the fire of the Ringtheater is featured quite prominently in the fire brigade museum in the first district.
As you can imagine, the theater was completely destroyed in the fire. On the place it had stood, the Emperor let build an apartment block. He paid for it with his personal money and the rents that people had to pay to live in the building called Sühnhof went into the victims fund. Famously, Sigmund Freud was one of the inhabitants of that building for a while. It sadly got destroyed during the war and replaced by a in comparison quite ugly building that became the police headquarters.
In this tragic story I found one piece of interest for this crime story writer. The fire of the Ringtheater was the first incident, where the teeth of the victims were widely used to identify them. It was a Viennese doctor who first wrote about that method of looking at teeth to identify victims whose faces were unrecognizable and this tragic event sadly needed a lot of this type of identification. I read that this paved the way for the “Viennese school of criminalistics”, which sounds intriguing.
When you visit the statues in the Pötzleinsdorfer Schlosspark, think of the tragedy they saw and that they are some of the way too few survivors. But afterwards enjoy the park in all it’s beauty and enjoy life, my friend.
Have a good time in Vienna
