Landestheater Detmold is a theatre for operas, operettas, musicals, ballets, and stage plays in Detmold, North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany. It began as the Hochfürstliches Lippisches Hoftheater, founded in 1825 by the court of Lippe. The company has five venues in Detmold. With its guest appearances in more than a hundred locations in Germany and neighboring countries, the theatre company states that it is the largest touring company in Europe. History In 1820 Leopold II, Prince of Lippe, with the support of his mother Princess Pauline, decided to have a court theatre built in Detmold. He commissioned the architect . The groundbreaking ceremony took place on 18 April 1825. On 8 November 1825, the curtain of the Hochfürstliches Lippisches Hoftheater went up for the first time for Mozart's opera La clemenza di Tito, after only seven months of construction. August Pichler was appointed director of the new theatre. The respected Pichler troupe had been guests in the old Detmold comedy house. The program included both musical theatre and plays. Famous artists working at the theatre included Christian Dietrich Grabbe (as author and dreaded critic) and Albert Lortzing (as singer, actor and Kapellmeister.) On 5 February 1912, during the performance of Hermann Sudermann's Der Bettler von Syrakus, the theatre burned down to its foundation, due to a faulty chimney. It was rebuilt in the years 1914–1918 during World War I, after plans by the Berlin architect Bodo Ebhardt. The ongoing season could be provisionally brought to a close in the Detmolder Sommertheater. The new building was financed with donations by citizens of Detmold, funds of the Royal House, bank loans, and donations from citizens all over Germany. Its corner stone was laid on the Prince's birthday, 30 May 1914. The last loan was terminated in 1968, fifty years after the building was finished. The four columns of the original building remained in the new facade. Before reopening, ownership of the theater building passed into the hands of the Free State of Lippe. It reopened on 28 September 1919 with Lortzing's opera Undine. Like all German theatres, it had to close during World War II, on 1 September 1944. After the war, the British occupying forces set up their officers' mess there. The performance operation was therefore relocated to the Detmolder Sommertheater. On 5 July 1952, the building was released and the performance operation resumed. Otto Will-Rasing was artistic director from 1926 to 1969.