Old Comedy House (Aachen)

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Old comedy house with a courthouse attached to the left

The Alte Komödienhaus was a former cloth hall on the Katschhof in Aachen, which was converted into a theater by Johann Joseph Couven between 1748 and 1751 . Until the opening of a new theater building on May 15, 1825, the Komödienhaus served as a performance location for stage works and music theater , making it the first public theater in Aachen .

history

The first plans for a theater building date back to 1714. This new theater was intended to give a decisive boost to the long tradition of theater in Aachen. Since the beginning of the 17th century, the first venue was in the rooms of the Jesuit high school and later Kaiser-Karls-Gymnasium S. Against the background of the international imperial city bathing and on the initiative of the ambassadors of the Aachen Peace Congress of 1748 , and here especially by Count Wenzel Anton Kaunitz , it was decided to convert the 12th century Gewandhaus into a house of comedy. This made the Alte Schauspielhaus one of the first independent theaters that owed its creation to citizens' own initiative. The first performance was presented on September 19, 1751 by a group of actors from Prince Wilhelm IV of Orange, one month before his death, who was in Aachen at the time for a cure. With the new Komödienhaus, Aachen had its own theater before Frankfurt (1782) and Cologne (1783). Until 1806, the performances were largely shaped by Johann Heinrich Böhm's Böhm theater troupe , who also came as a traveling troupe with their own orchestra. In 1785, for example, they offered the Aachen audience a performance of Mozart's opera Die Entführung aus dem Serail and in 1794 his Magic Flute in the field of music theater, as well as Schiller's drama Die Räuber in 1791 and Don Juan in 1792 . During the French period, the influence of German drama was to be suppressed. Before the beginning and sometimes during the performances, republican songs such as Ah! Ça ira and the Marseillaise played.

The theater building was on the western side of the Katschhof square between the Aachen town hall and the courthouse, called the "eight". Lay musicians were initially responsible for the regular musical performances at the Komödienhaus and later a harmony corps reorganized in 1804, which was under the direction of a music director and from which the city orchestra and today's Aachen symphony orchestra developed in 1852 . The management and use of the house was left to the Aachen charity office in the years 1802-1818. Several times now, among other things, Josef Derossi's acting company has been engaged for some appearances, in whose ensemble there was also the young Albert Lortzing and his future wife, the actress Rosina Regina Ahles .

Since the Komödienhaus had been renovated on all sides, mostly made of wood and was unusable for performances in winter, the French government of occupied Aachen planned a long-term new theater building in 1802 as part of the promotion of the spa system. In contrast, the incumbent Mayor of Aachen, Cornelius von Guaita , preferred a renovation of the comedy house to the planned new building in 1820. The French architect Jaques Cellerier (1742–1814) took on the design for the renovation and expansion, but due to the massive lack of money, it was initially impossible to realize either a new building or a new building.

After the French had left and Prussia took over Aachen, the theater problem was again up for debate in 1815. During a visit by Karl Friedrich Schinkel to Aachen on September 12, 1816, both the new building plans and Cellerier's designs for the renovation of the old theater were presented to him, which provided for a greater depth and a higher tier. In his report, Schinkel initially recommended the conversion, but after King Friedrich Wilhelm III in July 1816 . Having handed over the property of the former Capuchin monastery on Kapuzinerplatz to the city of Aachen, the city council decided to build a new theater on the site of the former monastery.

The monarchs' congress convened in Aachen in the autumn of 1818 and the accompanying supporting program, however, ensured a makeshift repair of the comedy house without taking into account Cellerier's old plans. Instead, there were only necessary repairs, installation of gas lighting, fresh painting and the creation of new decorations for the proscenium . This postponed the new building project for the theater for an indefinite period. It was not until 1822 that the final decision was made to sell the old comedy house to finance the new theater building, but it was to be retained until its completion. During this time, Friedrich Sebald Ringelhardt took over the management and remained so for the first three years after moving to the new theater in 1825. Now it turned out that the old comedy house could not be sold after all, as there was a cellar in the building Property of a house owner from Krämerstrasse who did not want to give it up. As a result, two school houses in Ursulinerstrasse were sold and on December 7, 1829 they were relocated to the old comedy house, which from then on served as an elementary school.

After all, the former comedy house had to be finally demolished in 1902 for the construction of a new administration building.

architecture

The Komödienhaus was part of Couven's transformation of the former core area of ​​the Carolingian residence into a baroque- style square . According to his plans for the renovation of the cloth hall, only new window axes with wedge stones were installed in the arch and the mansard roof on the outer front was changed. The high mansard roof connected the court building to the north with the comedy house, into which a staircase led from the theater gallery, as the cloakrooms had been set up on the upper floor of the old "eight".

The two-storey building of the type of an Italian box theater from the 17th century consisted of the ground floor, the ground floor and balcony boxes and the galleries with a total of around 560 seats. The basement opened into an arched hall, above whose vaults the auditorium on the first floor was arranged. A barrel-shaped ceiling was installed in the mansard roof, which was crowned by a tambour .

The stage prospectus was structured in a Corinthian order . Two allegorical figures were placed on the entablature. The Granus coat of arms of the city of Aachen floated in the crown above the stage . Garlands, cartouches and vases adorned the parapets.

Johann Baptist Joseph Bastiné was entrusted with the painting of the curtain , whose apartment was on the ground floor right next to the room in which the decorations were painted.

At that time, no cars were allowed to drive on the Katschhof and they therefore stopped at the market square. The entrance to the comedy house led from there in the form of a covered corridor through the market tower.

literature

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c T. R. Kraus: On the way to modernity - Aachen in the French time 1792/93, 1794-1814 . Aachen 1994, p. 610 .
  2. ^ Paul Schoenen: Johann Joseph Couven. Schwan Düsseldorf, 1964, p. 77ff.
  3. ↑ Klaus Schulte, Peter Sardoc: 150 years of City Theater Aachen in photos and documents. Stippak Aachen 1975, p. 17.
  4. ↑ Heinrich Gandelheid: look into the past of the Imperial City . Vol. 1, Zeitungsverlag Aachen, Aachen 1989, p. 106.
  5. ↑ Lutz Felblick: data of music history , city administration Aachen, 1993 (online) .
  6. ^ Alfons Fritz: On the building history of the Aachen City Theater , in: Journal of the Aachen History Association . 22. 1900. Kaatzer, Aachen, 1900, (Fritz ZAGV XXII), p. 10f.
  7. ^ Fritz: ZAGV XXII, pp. 53, 66.
  8. ^ Fritz: ZAGV XXII, p. 102.
  9. ↑ Marcel Bauer, Frank Hovens, Anke Kappler, Belinda Petri, Christine Vogt & Anke Volkmer: On the way on Couvens tracks . Grenzecho-Verlag, ISBN 90-5433-187-9 , pp. 19-20 .
  10. ↑ Fritz, p. 11f., Note 2

Coordinates: 50 ° 46 ′ 31.3 "  N , 6 ° 5 ′ 2"  E