Long before it was used as an opera house, the Kroll Opera in Berlin served as an entertainment hall, comedy stage and textile warehouse. In 1841, Friedrich Wilhelm IV commissioned Joseph Kroll to build a place of distinguished conviviality, which was opened in 1944 in what is now Berlin's Tiergarten district. The result was a castle-like complex with room for 5,000 guests, which offered various events. After Joseph Kroll's death, his daughter Auguste took over the business and organized trade exhibitions and the first operas in the building. In 1855 it had to close.

From 1896 the building was run for the first time as a state opera house under the name "Neues Königliches Operntheater". The Kroll Opera had its high time from 1927-1931 under the direction of the conductor Otto Klemperer. In the four years of his directorship he presented 44 world premieres, among others by Arnold Schönberg, Ernst Krenek, Paul Hindemith as well as Igor Stravinsky and Leoš Janáček. His aim was to make opera interesting again as an art form and to adapt traditional operas to the new era. To this end, many well-known personalities of the time worked there, including Gustaf Gründgens and Hans Curjel as directors and Caspar Neher, László Moholy-Nagy, Oskar Schlemmer and Giorgio de Chirico as stage designers. During the Second World War the Kroll Opera was under the control of the Nazi regime, the last performance took place on July 3, 1931. It was used as a building in which session of the Reichstag took place and so badly damaged by air raids in 1943 that the building was finally demolished in 1951.