Gärtnerplatz

This guide to Gaertnerplatz in Munich follows the theatre that gives the square its stage, built by Munich's middle class in the eighteen sixties as an alternative to the stiff royal opera across town, with its foundation stone laid in eighteen sixty-four. It traces the venue's slide toward financial ruin within a few years, and the unlikely rescuer who stepped in: King Ludwig the Second, better known for emptying the treasury on fairy-tale castles in the Alps. The square itself takes its name from architect Friedrich von Gaertner, who shaped much of the surrounding city.