Teatro Victoria Eugenia

Alfred Hitchcock premiered Vertigo in this theatre. Just sit with that for a moment. One of the greatest films ever made had its debut in a horseshoe-shaped auditorium in the Basque Country. North by Northwest premiered here too. For nearly fifty years -- from nineteen fifty-three to nineteen ninety-nine -- every major San Sebastian Film Festival screening happened on this stage.

The theatre was inaugurated in nineteen twelve by Queen Victoria Eugenia, and architect Francisco de Urcola packed it with theatrical technologies he had picked up studying venues in Paris and Vienna. The original auditorium held one thousand two hundred and fifty seats in a classic horseshoe layout, though a two thousand and seven renovation trimmed that to around nine hundred for better comfort.

Look at the facade. It sits directly across the Urumea River from the Hotel Maria Cristina, and together the two buildings form a kind of cultural gateway. The theatre's Belle Epoque exterior -- all arched windows and ornamental stonework -- was designed to impress arriving guests as they crossed the bridge. The effect still works over a century later.

When the Kursaal opened in nineteen ninety-nine, the Film Festival moved its main screenings to the larger venue. But the Victoria Eugenia did not fade into retirement. It was renovated and continues to host smaller festival screenings, theatre productions, concerts, and special events. The intimate horseshoe shape makes it a better venue for many performances than the larger Kursaal auditorium.

The theatre is named after Victoria Eugenia of Battenberg, who married King Alfonso the Thirteenth. She was the granddaughter of Queen Victoria of England, which meant that when she attended premieres here, she brought a very particular kind of European royal glamour to the Basque coast.