Music rooms of the Munich Residenz

Why the confusion happens

The Residenz is Germany's largest city palace, with ten courtyards, and several of its rooms host concerts. Searches for a Residenz concert in Munich can lead to any of them, and the names are similar: court chapel, court church, hall, theatre. The concert on this site is in the court chapel, the Hofkapelle. The rooms below are the others, and each has its own programme, its own organiser and its own booking. A ticket for one will not get you into another, so check the room before you pay. The concert on this site is in the court chapel only.

The court chapel, 1601–1603

This is the room of the concert on this site. Maximilian I had it built between 1601 and 1603, with a choir added in 1630. It is a two-storey room with white stucco, tall windows and a gilded high altar showing the Virgin in glory beneath the Trinity. Museum visitors may enter only its gallery. A concert is the other way in. Reviewers praise its acoustics, and the organiser warns that it is cool in summer and can be cold in winter.

The Cuvilliés Theatre

The Cuvilliés Theatre, or Old Residence Theatre, is the former court theatre of the Residenz. It was built in the 1750s as the court opera house by François Cuvilliés the Elder in the Rococo style, with a red and gold interior and tiers of carved boxes. It is the room where Mozart's Idomeneo premiered in 1781. After war damage, the boxes were reused because they had been dismantled and stored, and the theatre reopened in 1958 on a new site within the Residenz. It is a theatre, not a chapel, and it has its own listings.

The Herkulessaal

The Herkulessaal, or Hercules Hall, is a concert hall in the Festsaalbau, the wing of the palace that faces the Hofgarten. The palace's account says it opened in 1953 as a concert hall in place of the throne room of Ludwig I in the former Festival Hall Building. Wikipedia calls it the primary concert venue for the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra. It is a large hall for symphonic concerts, a different scale and a different kind of evening from the chapel, and it has its own programme and its own booking.

The Allerheiligen-Hofkirche

The Allerheiligen-Hofkirche, the Court Church of All Saints, is a different building from the court chapel. It was designed by Leo von Klenze and built between 1826 and 1837, and the German Wikipedia article describes it as the first Neo-Byzantine church in Europe. It was badly damaged by bombing in the Second World War and left a ruin for decades. The palace lists its reopening in 2003, and it is now used for concerts and events. Its brick vaults and unplastered walls are the opposite of the white stucco of the court chapel.

Which one the card opens

The first card on this site opens the concert in the court chapel, the early 17th-century room described above. If you are looking for the Cuvilliés Theatre, the Herkulessaal or the Allerheiligen-Hofkirche, this is not the page, and the Residenz's own event pages and the Munich booking rail below the cards are the place to look. Check the room named in the heading of any listing before you book, because the Residenz holds several evenings of music under similar names. If the heading says court chapel, Hofkapelle or Alte Hofkapelle, you are in the right place. If it says court church, Allerheiligen or Cuvilliés, you are not, and the booking is for a different room with a different atmosphere and a different organiser.

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