Albrecht Puhlmann

Albrecht Puhlmann (born December 5, 1955 in Bad Segeberg ) is a German dramaturge and artistic director .

life and work

Albrecht Puhlmann studied musicology , philosophy and literary history in Hamburg . He completed his studies with a thesis on Hans Werner Henze and tradition under the title Human Rights of the Ear .

From 1982 until his death in 2002 he worked closely with the director Herbert Wernicke , whose regular dramaturgical collaborator he was.

Until 1985 Albrecht Puhlmann worked as a freelance dramaturge a. a. at the state theaters in Darmstadt and Kassel, at the Theater Basel and at the Deutsche Oper Berlin . In 1986 he took up his first permanent position as an opera dramaturge at the Staatstheater Kassel . This is where his collaboration with Peter Konwitschny began .

From 1988 to 1993 Albrecht Puhlmann was the opera dramaturge at the Basel Theater under the direction of Frank Baumbauer . The focus here was on the collaboration with the directors Herbert Wernicke, Peter Konwitschny, Renate Ackermann and Ruth Berghaus .

Three years as a freelance dramaturge for opera and drama followed from 1993 to 1996, among others at the Schauspielhaus Hamburg , at the Salzburg Festival with Gerard Mortier (regularly since 1993 to 1998), at the Opéra de la Monnaie in Brussels and at the Holland Festival .

From 1996 to 2001 Albrecht Puhlmann was Opera Director and Head Dramaturg of the Opera at the Theater Basel. There he worked in particular with the conductors Julia Jones , David Parry , Michael Hofstetter , René Jacobs and the directors Herbert Wernicke, Christoph Marthaler , Jossi Wieler , Barbara Beyer and Nigel Lowery .

From 2001 to 2006 Albrecht Puhlmann was artistic director of the Hanover State Opera . Here he established Calixto Bieito as an opera director and worked with directors such as Jossi Wieler, Peter Konwitschny, Nigel Lowery and Thomas Bischoff , together with the GMD Shao-Chia Lü.

From 2006 to 2011 he was artistic director of the Stuttgart State Opera . There, Albrecht Puhlmann placed a special focus on dealing with the musical cultures of France and Germany. A gap in the Stuttgart repertoire has been closed with new productions, particularly of the French opera, as well as prominent or unjustifiably forgotten works by the Grand Opéra . Other important conductors besides GMD Manfred Honeck were Enrique Mazzola , Julia Jones, David Parry , Michael Hofstetter , Konrad Junghänel , Marc Soustrot and Patrick Fournillier . In Stuttgart he hired directors such as Calixto Bieito , Jossi Wieler and Sergio Morabito, Joachim Schlömer , Philipp Stölzl and Stefan Herheim . In addition, there were new manuscripts by directors such as Sebastian Nübling , Igor Bauersima and Anna Viebrock.

Since the 2016/2017 season, Albrecht Puhlmann has succeeded Klaus-Peter Kehr as the opera director of the Mannheim National Theater . There, too, Albrecht Puhlmann is building on the content and aesthetics of the opera. One focus of the artistic work is on the early forms of opera and the work of Claudio Monteverdi , to which a large-scale cycle is dedicated in collaboration with the baroque ensemble "il Gusto Barocco" under the direction of Jörg Halubek. In addition to the operas Orfeo , The Homecoming of Odysseus and The Coronation of Poppea, this also includes the Marienvespers as a staged performance.

In addition to the intensive preoccupation with the early forms of opera, world premieres form an important pillar of the work. In a dialogue with related arts, the opera also opens up to trends in pop music and pop culture and tries out future-oriented forms of music theater, such as the world premiere of Vespertine (2017/2018) based on the album Vespertine by the Icelandic pop icon Björk .

The collaboration with directors such as Roger Vontobel, Calixto Bieito, Anna Viebrock, Lorenzo Fioroni, Yona Kim and Markus Bothe as well as the Danish artist collective “Hotel Pro Forma” is very important. The idea of ​​“opening up” also means making the opera more accessible to new audiences: as part of the “Alphabet” series (based on the squares of Mannheim city center ), Mannheim districts are invited to the opera; there are introductory and discussion events, chamber operas and concerts that range from song to jazz evenings. They are grouped together in the Musiksalon series. The "Alphabet Choir" also offers music-loving laypeople the opportunity to participate musically and sometimes also scenically in NTM productions.

But the Mannheim repertoire, which is one of the oldest and largest opera repertoires in the world, is cultivated with the greatest commitment under the artistic direction of Albrecht Puhlmann and the artistic direction of GMD Alexander Soddy . The spectrum of directors' manuscripts and theater forms extends from Parsifal from the opening year of the new National Theater on Goetheplatz (1957) to contemporary experimental designs, which also have their place in the biennial "Mannheim Summer", the former Mannheim Mozart Summer.

In May 2019, he extended his contract until summer 2024.

Publications

• Pomp and darkness. Hans Werner Henze's great opera “Die Bassariden” . In: Music theater in the 20th century. (Ed. Constantin Floros ed.al.) Hamburger Jahrbuch für Musikwissenschaft, Volume 10. Laaber-Verlag 1988
• Endgame and new thought. In: Longing for alienated production. The director Peter Konwitschny. Berlin 1992, ISBN 3-929333-11-2 .
• To the presence of mind of the opera. A conversation. In: the German stage . May 2001
• Why opera? Conversations with opera directors (Ed. Barbara Beyer) Foreword. Berlin 2005, ISBN 3-89581-145-9 .
• My nineties. Basel opera times 1996–2001. In: Nineteen ninety-six through two thousand and six. Edited by Michael Schindhelm . Schwabe-Verlag Basel 2006, ISBN 978-3-7965-2230-7 .
• In the mountain of dreams. Memories of Herbert Wernicke. In: Harmony remains utopia. About the exhibition: Herbert Wernicke - director and set designer. Academy of Arts Archive. Berlin 2006, ISBN 3-88331-094-8 (also as: En la montano de los sueños. Recuerdos de Herbert Wernicke y su teatro musical alegórico . In: Armonía frente a Utopía. Festival Mozart A Coruña 2008)
• Tradition is not the worship of the ashes ... Five years of opera in Hanover. In: Review. Hanover State Opera 2001-2006
• Mission Impossible in the Swabian rectory. A conversation. In: die deutsche bühne , October 2006
• Always looking for the new in the old - it has to be. In: From the future of an impossible art. 21 perspectives on music theater. (Ed .: Bettina Knauer, Peter Krause) Bielefeld 2006, ISBN 3-89528-542-0 .
• Distant present. On the problems of opera to define oneself in the here and now. In: Opera between event and esotericism. The focus is on the German stage . September 2007
• Think for yourself! About some constants in Peter Konwitschny's directorial work. In: Anja Oeck (Ed.) Music theater as utopia. Peter Konwitschny staged. Berlin 2008, ISBN 978-3-88331-122-7 .
• Opera affects us all. A conversation. In: agora 42. Economy. Philosophy. Life. March 2010
• The people enforce peace. Ruth Berghaus stages Verdi's “Don Carlo” . In: Ruth Berghaus. Stories from the production. Berlin 2010 (Rotbuch), ISBN 978-3-86789-117-2 .
• Between heaven and hell the singing man. Approaches to Herbert Wernicke's allegorical opera theater. In: Herbert Wernicke. Director. Set designer. Costume designer. Schwabe-Verlag Basel 2011, ISBN 978-3-7965-2590-2 .
• The do-gooders. A figure of thought in Herbert Wernicke's productions. Basel 2011, ISBN 978-3-7965-2590-2 .
• Crystallizations (ed.). The Stuttgart State Opera 2006–2011. avedition Ludwigsburg / Stuttgart 2001, ISBN 978-3-89986-161-7 .

literature

• Dominique Spirgi: Albrecht Puhlmann . In: Andreas Kotte (Ed.): Theater Lexikon der Schweiz . Volume 2, Chronos, Zurich 2005, ISBN 3-0340-0715-9 , p. 1439 f.

Individual evidence

1. ^ Albrecht Puhlmann in the Swiss Theater Lexicon
2. ↑ Sleeping Beauty and the Wolf . In: The time
3. ↑ Mannheimer Morgen, edition of June 27, 2014.
4. ↑ Newspaper article on the CD release of Vespertine. Retrieved June 18, 2019 . 
5. ↑ Information on the alphabet program. Retrieved June 18, 2019 . 
6. ↑ Information about the Mannheim summer. Retrieved June 18, 2019 . 
7. ↑ Article Mannheimer Morgen. Retrieved June 18, 2019 .