Albert Theater (Dresden)
The Albert Theater was a theater on Albertplatz in Dresden that served as the Royal Playhouse until 1913.
In addition to the Residenztheater on Zirkusstrasse and the Semperoper , the former Royal Theater was one of the representative theaters of old Dresden.
history
The house was built between 1871 and 1873 according to a design by the architect Bernhard Schreiber in the neo-renaissance style of the Semper Nicolai School . The client was a stock corporation whose shares were owned by Neustadt citizens. The city of Dresden made the building site available free of charge. The theater was named after the Saxon King Albert . On September 20, 1873 the theater was opened with Johann Wolfgang von Goethe's Iphigenie auf Tauris . Until 1910, the theater was leased to the royal court .
After the opening of the Dresden theater on Ostra-Allee , the Albert Theater was transferred to a private stock corporation. This had the theater modernized and rebuilt. From 1913 both modern progressive plays - z. B. by Gerhart Hauptmann and Maxim Gorki - as well as popular pieces played. Premiere parties often took place in the neighboring Villa Eschebach . In 1921 the theater was renamed Neustädter Schauspielhaus . On October 19, 1936, it was " Aryanized " by the city of Dresden and was now called Theater des Volkes - Städtisches Theater am Albert-Platz . The Reich Minister for Public Enlightenment and Propaganda made a substantial “Reich grant”, and the Lord Mayor of Dresden coordinated the schedule and the appointments of the leaders with the Reich Ministry.
The Albert Theater burned down during the air raid on Dresden , but the outer walls of the theater building were well preserved. Although the Dresden theater artists were in favor of rebuilding, in autumn 1949 the municipal monument office removed two bronze plaques from the ruins. To said Fritz Löffler that the Albert Theater for the "cultural history of Dresden highest importance" and that was the result of the destruction of the theater facade plastic is that "no piece from these years can be shown as evidence." In September 1950 the stage and the auditorium were demolished. The salvage of the two façade figures dance and music by the sculptor Menzel was not approved by the Wermund City Planning Council; Nevertheless, the figures were included in the lapidarium in the Zion Church . After their renovation, they have been in reminiscence in the foyer of Kraftwerk Mitte , a venue for the Dresden State Operetta, since 2016 .
The building
The house was built in the neo-renaissance style as a free-standing theater building on a rectangular floor plan using plaster and sandstone as a two-storey house, the stage building was three-storey and had a triangular gable at the main entrance. The building had 1500 seats.
The storeys of the two-storey building were clearly structured by cornices, with the ground floor facade being cuboid . The facade of the upper floor was smooth and showed an order of pilasters and columns.
The main facade on the narrow side of the building had a five-axis central projection. This was divided in the middle at ground floor level with a three-axis portal with round arches and at upper floor level with a three-strand vestibule, which was flanked on both sides by single-axis round arch niches with the figures of dance and music by the sculptor Menzel. The main façade with portal ended with a relief frieze by Robert Henze and sgraffiti by Anton Dietrich and figural jewelry by Menzel. The side facade was decorated with a nine-axis risalit with arcades, pilasters and aedicules .
The schedule and theater operations
During its time as the court theater, mostly bourgeois dramas and small operas were played in the Albert Theater. As an independent theater house, the Albert Theater assumed the function of "being a supplement to the court theater on the side of the popular and the modern" from 1913. For the reopening of the Albert Theater in 1913, Ferdinand Raimund's "Original Magic Tale" was given to the spendthrift . In addition to classics, the program mainly featured comedies, salon pieces, but also contemporary realistic pieces by George Bernard Shaw and Gerhart Hauptmann, among others .
Reinhardt student Adolf Edgar Licho headed the Albert Theater from 1914 to 1918 . During this time he succeeded in defining the theater's repertoire as well as classics and, above all, modern pieces, with plays by Anton Wildgans , Frank Wedekind , Henrik Ibsen and August Strindberg . Licho also paved the way for expressionist drama. Just eight days after the world premiere of Walter Hasenclever's play Der Sohn , the drama was shown with Ernst Deutsch in the leading role in a closed event at the Albert Theater. In 1917 Oskar Kokoschka performed his one-act play The Burning Bush , Job and Murderer, Hope of Women on his own at the Albert Theater. Fritz Kortner , Heinrich George and Olga Limburg played under Licho in Dresden .
After a period of instability, during which, among other things, actors left who subsequently founded the Komödienhaus in Reitbahnstraße, Hermine Körner took over the management of the Albert Theater, which had been running under the name "Neustädter Schauspielhaus" since 1921. In 1923 Hugo Wolfgang Philipp was hired as a director, who also joined the management from 1927 and was dismissed as a Jew in 1933. The Albert Theater now mainly gave classical pieces that were also tailored to the grains. In addition, modern dramas, including by Ernst Barlach and the Dresden premiere of Bertolt Brecht's Threepenny Opera in 1929 , were included in the program.
While controversial pieces such as Friedrich Wolf's Cyankali were shown before 1933, the problem arose from 1935 that the actual operetta theater in Dresden, the Residenztheater, was closed due to structural defects, and that the Albert Theater took its place in 1936 as the “Theater of the People” or had to kick; Max Eckhardt from Dresden took over the management, Georg Wörtge became one of the two directors of the house . The Albert Theater showed Nazi drama, among others by Dietrich Eckart and August Hinrichs . A special feature was the German premiere in 1938 of the Singspiel Rosalind , based on Shakespeare , by composer Florence Wickham. Under Artistic Director Max Eckhardt, comedies were increasingly shown, but operettas , among others by Nico Dostal and Franz von Suppè , were also included in the program. The operetta staff included Fee von Reichlin . Operetta premieres at the Albert Theater were, for example, Eduard Künneke's Dreamland and Fred Raymond's Die Perle von Tokay in 1941 .
Under the direction of Curt Hampes from 1941, besides drama and operetta, folk opera was also included in the program, so in the next few years there were performances of Rigoletto and the Freischütz . On August 31, 1944, the Albert Theater had to stop its theater operations by order of the state; it was never restarted due to its destruction.
Well-known actors and artists who worked at the Albert Theater (selection)
- Sarah Bernhardt
- Gertrud Brendler
- Felix Bressart
- Lil Dagover
- Ernst German
- Eleonora Duse
- Hertha Genzmer
- Heinrich George
- Gertrud Eysoldt
- Günther Hadank
- Martin hero
- Lucie politely
- Carl Junghans (as dramaturge)
- Josef Kainz
- Hermione grains
- Fritz Kortner
- Ruth Lange
- Adolf Edgar Licho
- Olga Limburg
- Alexander Moissi
- Robert Muller
- Hugo Wolfgang Philipp (as director)
- Ernst von Possart
- Adele Sandrock
- Erhard Siedel
- William Wauer (as set designer)
- Gertrud Welcker
- Georg Wörtge
literature
- Volker Helas : Architecture in Dresden 1800–1900. Verlag der Kunst, Dresden 1991, ISBN 3-364-00261-4 .
- Matthias Lerm : Farewell to old Dresden - Loss of historical building fabric after 1945. Forum Verlag, Leipzig 1993, ISBN 3-86151-047-2 .
- Fritz Löffler : The old Dresden - history of its buildings. E. A. Seemann, Leipzig 1981, ISBN 3-363-00007-3 .
- Hansjörg Schneider : Dresden Theater 1933–1945: "Play was the pleasure and play the danger". Henschel, Berlin 2003, ISBN 3-89487-456-2 , pp. 144-151.
- Stadtlexikon Dresden A-Z . Verlag der Kunst, Dresden 1995, ISBN 3-364-00300-9 , p. 38.
Web links
Individual evidence
- ↑ File VI6581 RM Prop
- ↑ Lerm, p. 66. [Alberttheater (Albertplatz)]
- ↑ Anders Hansjörg Schneider (2003, p. 144), according to which the house had 1300 seats.
- ↑ Helas, p. 182 [Alberttheater. Albertplatz. 1871/1873 by Schreiber for a joint stock company Neustädter Bürger] and Löffler, p. 389 [The successor to Sempers] and p. 408f image no. 506 [The Albert Theater, B. Schreiber, 1871 to 1873]
- ↑ Felix Zimmermann quoted. at Schneider, p. 144.
- ↑ The private stage was closed in 1949.
Coordinates: 51 ° 3 ′ 47.3 " N , 13 ° 44 ′ 52" E