At the Vanemuine Theater's New Year's Eve ball, director Aivar Mäe announced that starting from January 1, 2026, the theater will be known as the "Estonian National Theater Vanemuine" ("Eesti rahvusteater Vanemuine").

When it comes to the renaming process, the Vanemuine has taken a different approach to the Estonian National Opera (Eesti Rahvusooper). The latter's named is enshrined in Estonian law due to being explicitly stipulated in the National Opera Act. By contrast, legally speaking, the Vanemuine will continue to be named "Teater Vanemuine" ("Vanemuine Theater"), though will present itself to the public under its new name.

"Legally, we are the Vanemuine Theater Foundation and will remain so," Mäe explained, drawing a parallel with the popular confectionary brand "Kalev."

"We all know what the Kalev confectionary factory is, but we don't know what their business name is, which is 'Orkla," he said. "The same is now true of Vanemuine. We are the 'Vanemuine Theater Foundation,' and our new brand is the 'Estonian National Theater Vanemuine.'"

According to Mäe, the Vanemuine has wanted the title of national theater for decades.

"On the one hand, we are Estonia's oldest theater, the first professional theater, and also in fact, Estonia's first musical theater – the first musical piece was performed here at the end of the 19th century. We have the largest audience, and we produce the most original Estonian works. That is why we were founded. I think we have a very important place in Estonian culture."

He added that the national theater name will help to market the Vanemuine and its work better internationally.

 "We will be traveling a lot in the future, and for the purposes of marketing ourselves outside Estonia, the name 'Vanemuine' does not mean anything in particular," Mäe pointed out.

Last year, the Vanemuine put on 461 performances with audience numbers reaching almost 170,000 people. According to the theater director, the Vanemuine is doing very well, and its success is largely down to artistic directors Tanel Jonas, Jevgeni Grib and Risto Joost.

"This artistic trio has a really strong sense of their role. The ideas, repertoire selection and planning are of an extremely high standard, and we also find time to travel outside Estonia, so we are making three trips this year. The most important of those is to the Latvian National Opera, where we will be for a week," Mäe said.

The Vanemuine also plans to continue touring Estonia.

"Whether we're talking about drama, music or dance, we try to ensure that we have productions in all these genres that can also be performed in slightly smaller venues," said Mäe, adding that performances will definitely be given in Haapsalu, Pärnu, Viljandi, Paide, Narva, Jõhvi, Võru and Põlva this year, with more locations expected to be confirmed at a later date.

"The owner's expectations for us are that we should not just be a theater for the south of Estonia, but cover the whole of Estonia, because, as I said, we are the only theater performing these three genres and we have a lot to offer our audiences."

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