The theatre opened on 13 June 1801 with a prologue written by Schikaneder followed by a performance of the opera "Alexander" by Franz Teyber. The new theatre proved to be a sensation. Adolf Bäurle, a local critic, wrote "if Schikaneder and partner Zitterbarth had had the idea ... to charge admission simply for looking at the glories of their , Schikaneder would certainly have been able to take in vast sums of money without giving one single performance." The "Allgemeine musikalische Zeitung" called it the "most comfortable and satisfactory in the whole of Germany" (which meant at the time, "all German-speaking lands").