Many theatres, museums and opera houses in Berlin will have to prepare for considerable savings next year, in some cases amounting to millions of euros, as the city’s government implements budget cuts.
A number of well-known cultural institutions, including the Deutsches Theater, will be impacted by the cutbacks, which city leaders publicly detailed on Tuesday.
Berlin Mayor Kai Wegner, a centre-right Christian Democrat (CDU), said that the decisions regarding the cultural sector were painful.
“We now have to see, and I hope the theatres will do the same, also in discussions with our cultural institutions, how we can manage to work even more economically here,” he said.
Overall, Berlin is slashing its cultural funding budget by around €120 million ($127 million), or about 12%. The budget for 2025 will now be around €1.2 billion.
For weeks now, theatres have been warning of insolvency, restrictions in operations and job losses.
The artistic director of the Berliner Ensemble theatre company, Oliver Reese, has already announced that at least five productions would have to be cancelled.
The Berlin International Film Festival, also known as Berlinale, will also see public support cut in half, from €2 million ($2.1 million) in 2024 to €1 million in 2025.
The Berlinale is considered one of the world’s top film festivals, and draws internationally renowned filmmakers and actors to the German capital each year.
The renovation of the Komische Oper opera hall will be delayed indefinitely, as the city cut €10 million that had been earmarked for the project from the 2025 budget.
“A plan that has been prepared and developed for years in dialogue between the city, the planners and the Komische Oper Berlin is being discarded overnight,” the opera house said in response.
