Ravensburg Concert Hall

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Ravensburg Concert Hall

The Konzerthaus Ravensburg is a theater and concert building in Ravensburg that was opened in 1897 and is mainly used for theater guest performances, concerts and congresses. With 574 seats, it is the largest theater in the city. The building, financed by foundations from the industrialist Julius Spohn and other citizens, was built by the Viennese office Fellner & Helmer in the style of historicism and is still largely in the state in which it was built. The concert hall is the only preserved historical theater building in Upper Swabia in Württemberg and, together with its preserved holdings, is part of the historicalStage sets since 1988 under monument protection .

Building description

Konzerthaus Ravensburg (view from Veitsburg )

The concert hall is located on Wilhelmstrasse, the northern part of the incomplete ring road around the medieval old town, and forms a Wilhelminian style ensemble with the neighboring school buildings from 1882. The elongated building has a basilica-like cross-section: a higher central section with the theater and the stage is flanked by lower side wings with foyers and cloakrooms, from which only the southern “ vestibule ” with the main entrance protrudes.

The spectators enter the house via a driveway combined with a staircase on Wilhelmstrasse, which is decorated with two cast-iron lanterns. The facade on the long side of the building combines style elements of the Renaissance , Baroque and Classicism as an example of the historicist eclecticism of the period of origin . The dominant element is the vestibule with its monumental triangular pediment and four half-columns with Corinthian capitals . The round arch under the triangular gable was originally decorated with a glass painting by the Viennese glass painter Lenz that can be illuminated from the inside, which has not been preserved. The preserved facade decoration includes a bust of Apollo , the inscription “Concert-Haus”, a lion's head and the top of the gable with the Ravensburg city ​​arms and a lyre . The less representative west facade, dominated by the large door for the delivery of stage sets, has some architectural decorations.

In the entrance hall there are memorial plaques for the donors and the companies involved in the construction as well as a bronze plaque with a relief of the founder Julius Spohn from 1911. The floor tiles in the entrance hall date from 1897.

The theater hall measures 22.5 × 15 × 9.5 m and is designed in the Neo-Rococo style. It has 574 seats, 172 of which are on the surrounding gallery held by pillars . The stucco with floral and musical motifs was supplied by the Crailsheim plaster factory, the gilding and painting come from the Viennese purveyor to the court, Joseph Kott . The proscenium arch contains a richly decorated box on the left and right, accessible from the gallery, and a lower, somewhat simpler box that is accessible from the parquet. On the walls above the gallery there are plaques with the names of German and Austrian classical composers.

In addition to the large theater hall, to the east of the concert hall there is a small hall for events for up to 100 people, which can be opened to the large hall and is otherwise mainly used as a break foyer . The "Liederkranzsaal", the rehearsal hall of the oratorio choir Liederkranz Ravensburg, is located above the small hall .

  • Large hall, view of the stage

  • Great hall, view of the auditorium

  • Great hall, proscenium boxes

  • Small Hall

Building history

Postcard before the expansion in 1899
Section before the expansion in 1899

In 1881 the " Old Theater ", the upper floor of the Renaissance building "Brotlaube" on Ravensburger Gespinstmarkt, was closed because the safety of spectators and participants could no longer be ensured due to the lack of escape routes. One of the theater fires, which were frequent in the 19th century due to the lighting technology, would also have badly affected the rest of the old town, as the Brotlaube is not a free-standing building.

Theatrical performances then took place in the gym on the Kuppelnau . The factory owner and later honorary citizen Julius Spohn and his brother Georg Spohn donated 20,000 marks as the basis for the construction of a theater in 1881, with the stipulation that the city had to start construction within 15 years. It was not until the 1890s that the plans for the new building became more specific. Spohn and other Ravensburger citizens founded the “Saalbauverein AG” and provided it with capital. An initially favored design by a Stuttgart architect was abandoned after it became known that he had no experience in theater construction and was completely unknown in Stuttgart itself. As time was pressing, Spohn again took the initiative and in 1895 ordered a design from the Viennese firm Fellner & Helmer , which was considered a leader in theater construction in Central Europe. Architect Ferdinand Fellner the Elder J. provided the design, which was finally carried out in 1896–1897. Ultimately, Julius Spohn bore around two thirds of the total cost of around 300,000 marks . To gain space for the new building, the medieval Rauenegg torkel on Wilhelmstrasse was demolished.

Since the house had no backstage and therefore soon proved to be too small for theatrical performances, Spohn financed an extension of the stage by two bays through a renewed foundation in 1899, again according to Fellner's plans.

In the 1960s there were plans to convert the concert hall, which had never been renovated, or to tear it down completely. After civil protests, the house was renovated in 1968 according to the original plans. The originally existing lunette windows in the upper part of the auditorium, which let in daylight, were bricked up in the course of this renovation. The original seating with Thonet bentwood chairs was replaced by modern seating. Otherwise, the neo-baroque auditorium still looks as it was when it was built.

In 1973, the city administration had the trees on Wilhelmstrasse, a section of the B 32 , felled to widen the road. This measure, which was criticized as a “night and fog action”, triggered loud public protest. The large driveway and stairs of the concert hall were also supposed to be demolished at that time, which was prevented by citizens with protest actions and night watch. The Citizens' Forum Old Town developed from the context of these campaigns and has since promoted the careful and listed renovation of the Ravensburg buildings.

In 1980 and 2000 the exterior of the concert hall was renovated again and the stage technology was repeatedly adapted to the requirements of modern theater operations.

use

Historical use

The house was inaugurated on November 14, 1897. At 11 a.m., the city council, donors, guests of honor and the craftsmen involved in the construction marched from the town hall to the concert hall. There, the architect Ferdinand Fellner, who had traveled from Vienna, presented the keys to Martin Springer, the Ravensburger Stadtschultheissen . The patron Julius Spohn received the honorary citizenship of the city. In the theater hall, the Ravensburg Liederkranz sang the entry of the singers from Wagner's Tannhäuser , after which members of the Ravensburg Museum Association performed the festival The Muses . A celebratory meal and a large evening banquet concluded the day. The first regular performance in the Konzerthaus was the play Der Zunftmeister von Nürnberg by Oskar von Redwitz , performed by Ravensburger Theaterfreunde under the direction of Otto Merz. The following Sunday the Liederkranz sang Mendelssohn's oratorio Elias .

After the opening, Julius Spohn again took the initiative and founded the “Konzerthaus-Kommission”, which organized the ongoing events. In 1898, foreign ensembles played 50 performances, to which spectators also came from neighboring cities and even from Switzerland. In addition to plays, operettas and operas, the program included concerts by the Weingarten Regiment chapel , which was also responsible for the incidental music for guest performances.

After the fire in the Stuttgart court theater in 1902, its director Joachim Gans zu Putlitz , who had already arrived as a guest of honor for the opening of the concert hall, tried to play on smaller stages in the provinces. The court theater troupe performed 39 operas and plays in the Ravensburg Konzerthaus between 1903 and 1910. Such guest performances with up to 150 participants could not be organized economically in the small house, so that again and again city subsidies and private foundations had to ensure the continued operation. In 1907, at an opera performance in which the Ravensburg Liederkranz also took part, the Stuttgart guests noticed the beautiful tenor voice of choir member Karl Erb , who then made a splendid career as an opera tenor in Stuttgart, Lübeck and Munich.

Rod theater ensemble, around 1895–1900

The Ravensburger Rutentheater played in the Konzerthaus as early as 1898; The house also provided a festive setting for the drummers' balls at the Rutenfest until 1969.

Since Ravensburg was easy to get to by rail, around 1900 it also knew how to market itself to tourists as the “Swabian Nuremberg” and had a well-developed hotel business, the city was able to attract congresses and meetings with a national appeal to the concert hall early on, including several Annual meetings of the Görres Society . Local political events also made frequent use of the concert hall, including a gathering of opponents of the revolutionary workers 'and soldiers' councils in November 1918 or, from 1933, the youth's solemn commitments in the National Socialist youth organizations.

In the immediate post-war period , the French occupying power organized a diverse theater and concert program for French soldiers and the German population from 1945 to 1948, which included over 100 events in the concert hall in 1946 alone.

In 1957, the concert hall was the scene of a nationwide scandal when the pop singer Vico Torriani was prevented from singing by around 50 high school students by whistles, tomato throws, stink bombs and the speaking choir “Schmalz, Schmalz”. With this planned action, the group wanted to protest against the hit music of the 1950s, which was perceived as "greasy" and "dumbfounding" . Some of the students were later fined. Public opinion was divided: on the one hand, letters to the editor in the local newspaper were ashamed of the young people, on the other hand, the action was perceived as liberating.

From 1984 to 2005 the Ravensburg Music School presented its own opera productions under the direction of Lutz Eistert in the Konzerthaus every two years. In these performances, the later internationally successful Ravensburg singers Manuela Uhl and Michael Kupfer played their first operatic roles.

Todays use

The concert hall has been managed by OberschwabenHallen Ravensburg GmbH since 2014 .

The cultural office of the city of Ravensburg uses it as a theater for guest performances by state theaters and touring theaters as well as for classical orchestral concerts by the Munich Chamber Orchestra as part of the municipal theater and concert subscription.

There is also regular venue of the traditional Ravensburger rods Theater , an amateur theater for children and young people to the annual Rutenfest , and the city orchestra Ravensburg (a symphonic wind orchestra), the Youth Symphony Orchestra of the Music School Ravensburg, the association Jazz Time Ravensburg, the cabaret carnival association "Milka" and other local Culture carrier.

Commercial organizers also rent the building for theater performances and concerts, smaller congresses and exhibitions.

Historical stage equipment

One of the historical stage brochures at a museum exhibition in 2008

The Konzerthaus owns a large inventory of theater sets by the Stuttgart painter Wilhelm Plappert , which were purchased for the guest performances of the Stuttgart Court Theater in the years 1903–1910. In detail, there are 70 large-format rear prospectuses, 35 backdrop arches, 11 festoon pieces and 145 attachment pieces. After that of the Meiningen Theater Museum, the collection represents the largest inventory of historical theater painting in Germany and the only larger inventory from the turn of the century to the First World War .

The stage sets are stored in the theater's own machine house behind the concert hall, which was no longer needed after being connected to the local power grid in 1907, was raised by one floor and has since served as a set store. For fire protection reasons, the decorations may no longer be used on the stage since the early 2000s; before that, they were used now and then for the rod theater and the opera productions of the music school. The artistic and theatrical value of the prospectuses remained unrecognized for decades. In 1984 city archivist Peter Eitel drew the public's attention to the scenery without any appreciable reaction. When the former machine house was to be rebuilt in 2007, the State Monuments Office of Baden-Württemberg expressly stated that the stage sets as accessories and the concert hall are under monument protection. During a closer inspection of the inventory in 2011, the preservationists were enthusiastic; Since then, the city and the country have had the entire inventory restored with the help of a grant from the German Foundation for Monument Protection . It will later also be made available to the public. During a production of the Handel opera Giulio Cesare in March 2013 photos of the old stage sets were shown as projections; two original set pieces with Egyptian motifs were also used on the stage of the concert hall.

In addition to the backdrops, the concert hall has other historic stage equipment, including a functional mechanical wind , rain and thunder machine from the time it was built.

A stage technology rarity is meanwhile the "impact box" preserved in the concert hall for particularly realistic thunder sounds. It is a specially built chimney-like shaft next to the side wall of the stage, which contains several offset paragraphs. Iron balls are dropped from above through a device into this shaft, which then generate thunder sounds when they hit the heels. There is also a Pani projector system from the second half of the 20th century, but like the sound generators mentioned, it is no longer used in theaters.

literature

  • Dieter Büchner: Curtain up! The historical stage decorations of the Ravensburger Konzerthaus . In: Preservation of monuments in Baden-Württemberg , ISSN  0342-0027 , 41st year 2012, issue 2, pp. 76-82 ( digitized version )
  • Iskra Buschek: Ravensburg Concert Hall . In: Gerhard M. Dienes (ed.): Fellner & Helmer, the architects of illusion. Theater construction and stage design in Europe. On the occasion of the 100th anniversary of the Graz Opera . Stadtmuseum, Graz 1999, ISBN 3-900764-21-2 , pp. 180-182
  • Peter Eitel : Ravensburg in the 19th and 20th centuries. Politics, economy, population, church, culture, everyday life . Thorbecke, Ostfildern 2004, ISBN 3-7995-0138-X , in particular pp. 193-196
  • Manfred F. Fischer : Historical theaters in Germany. A catalog. Volume 1. Western federal states . Hanover 1991, p. 13
  • Carola Franke: The Ravensburger Konzerthaus . In: Preservation of monuments in Baden-Württemberg , ISSN  0342-0027 , 13th year 1984, issue 3, pp. 85-89 ( digitized version )
  • Tobias Hafner : [1897] Nov. 14th Opening ceremony of the Konzerthaus. In: Old and new from the history of Ravensburg . Dorn'sche Buchhandlung, Ravensburg 1908, pp. 80–88 ( digitized version )
  • Hans-Christoph Hoffmann: The theater buildings by Fellner and Helmer . Prestel, Munich 1966, p. 108
  • Alfred Lutz : The long way to the concert hall . (= Ravensburger Stadtgeschichte; Issue 26). Ulmer Volksbank, Ravensburg 1997
  • Alfred Lutz: Julius Spohn, industrialist, patron. In: Maria Magdalena Rückert (Ed.): Württembergische biographies including Hohenzollern personalities. Volume I. On behalf of the Commission for Historical Regional Studies in Baden-Württemberg. Kohlhammer, Stuttgart 2006, ISBN 3-17-018500-4 , pp. 264–266 ( leo-bw.de )
  • Ursula Rückgauer: The concert hall in Ravensburg. A small Viennese opera house in Upper Swabia . In: Viva la musica . (= Time signal; 8). Kreissparkasse Ravensburg, Ravensburg 2011, pp. 8-11

Web links

Commons : Konzerthaus Ravensburg  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Notes and individual references

  1. ↑ a b c d e f Alfred Lutz: The long way to the concert hall , see literature
  2. ↑ see figure panel left , figure panel right , figure bronze relief Julius Spohn
  3. ↑ ravensburg.de - For performances that use the orchestra pit, several rows in the stalls are omitted, so that the number of seats is reduced accordingly.
  4. ^ List of suppliers to the Imperial and Royal Court 1899
  5. ^ Alfred Lutz: Julius Spohn, industrialist, patron . In: Württembergische Biographien, see literature
  6. ↑ Ursula Rückgauer: The concert hall in Ravensburg. A small Viennese opera house in Upper Swabia . In: Viva la musica . (= Time signal; 8). Kreissparkasse Ravensburg, Ravensburg 2011, pp. 8–11; Illustration of the original state
  7. ↑ Back then, the valuable chairs were sold for 5 DM each, only about 30 chairs remained in the concert hall and are stored there in the basement. Source: Information from the technical director of the concert hall
  8. ↑ Citizens' Forum Old Town Ravensburg e. V. ( Memento of the original from September 10, 2012 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.buergerforum-altstadtravensburg.de
  9. ↑ For the text "Der Zunftmeister von Nürnberg" see Google Books
  10. ↑ a b c Peter Eitel: Ravensburg in the 19th and 20th centuries. Politics, economy, population, church, culture, everyday life , pp. 193–196.
  11. ↑ Since 1970 the drummers' balls have taken place in the town hall and the culture and congress center Weingarten.
  12. ^ Peter Eitel: Ravensburg in the 19th and 20th centuries. Politics, economy, population, church, culture, everyday life , pp. 336–337
  13. ^ Peter Eitel: Ravensburg in the 19th and 20th centuries. Politics, economy, population, church, culture, everyday life , pp. 343–344
  14. ↑ Stadtkurier Ravensburg, January 6, 2011, p. 8 ( suedfinder.de , PDF)
  15. ↑ Role of Manuela Uhl: Pamina in Mozart's Magic Flute , 1986
  16. ^ Roles of Michael Kupfer: Lefort in Lortzings Zar und Zimmermann , 1990; Kezal in Smetana's Bartered Bride , 1992; Ottokar / Kilian in Weber's Freischütz , 1994
  17. ↑ oper-ravensburg.de
  18. ↑ Source: Information from the technical director of the concert hall
  19. ↑ Dieter Büchner: Curtain up! The historical stage decorations of the Ravensburger Konzerthaus
  20. ^ Theater treasure in Ravensburg is being renovated . In: FOCUS online, March 4, 2012
  21. ↑ Schwäbische Zeitung, local edition Ravensburg, February 11, 2013
  22. ↑ see figure wind machine , figure rain machine , figure thunder machine
  23. ↑ on how it works, see also sketch in the book: Tadeusz Krzeszowiak: Freihaustheater in Wien: 1787-1801 . Böhlau, 2009, ISBN 978-3-205-77748-9 , pp. 400 ( limited preview in Google Book Search).
  24. ↑ see figure Pani projector
This version was added to the list of articles worth reading on November 6, 2012 .

Coordinates: 47 ° 46 ′ 58.1 ″  N , 9 ° 36 ′ 59.4 ″  E