The story behind the „iron curtain”
At the beginning of December 1881, the Viennese newspapers reported on a tragic theater fire, after one of the city's keystones, the Ringtheater, operating as a comedy theater, caught fire and was completely burned down right before Offenbach's performance of The Tales of Hoffmann. About four hundred people lost their lives in the ruins of the 1,700-seat theater.
The tragic event, for which József Ferenc immediately rushed to Vienna, not only shook international theater life, but also had a serious impact on theater architecture, including the Budapest Opera House, which was being built at the time. Miklós Ybl, who has been working at the Andrássy út palace for many years, redesigned the building in response to the fire even before it was handed over, and many contemporary fire protection innovations served its safety. For the first time in the world, the iron curtain that separates the stage from the auditorium like a sluice appeared in the Opera House in Budapest. A rainwater storage system was built above the stage, and with the help of eight 200-liter water tanks located in the attic and gravity, they were able to flood the stage in seconds in the event of a fire. The heat and smoke exhaust was also solved in an exciting way - in addition to the ventilation, it also provided a path for the release of hot combustion gases - the warm air left through the large exhaust system above the stage and the auditorium, while the fresh air was supplied to the audience through the shafts built into the pavement house. But by making the stage hydraulics water-based and not oil-based, fires on the stage could be prevented much more effectively.