Old Theater (Düsseldorf)

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Casthouse converted into a theater in Düsseldorf, main facade and portico with four Ionic columns
Depiction of the theater facade on the market square after an engraving from the middle of the 19th century

The Old Theater (also known as Grupellotheater ) was a theater on the market square in Düsseldorf . The name Grupellotheater reminds us that the building was the former foundry of the Baroque sculptor Gabriel de Grupello . He had also cast the Jan Wellem equestrian statue here . The playhouse on the market square was replaced by a new city ​​theater built in 1875 on today's Heinrich-Heine-Allee .

history

The old casting house was already being used as a theater in 1747 when the Elector Karl Theodor was staying in Düsseldorf. It was in operation as a comedy house around 1750. From 1751 theatrical performances were given regularly in the house. In 1781 art-loving citizens asked Karl Theodor to improve the casting house. A princely commissioner repaired the building, new decorations were created at the expense of the elector. In 1805 the theater was converted into a "Bergische Nationalbühne" or into the "Bergische Deutsche Theater". After Düsseldorf became Prussian, King Friedrich Wilhelm III. the building previously owned by the state on April 11, 1818 by the city of Düsseldorf, which from then on leased it for theater purposes. The first tenant was the Austrian actor and theater director Joseph Derossi , who mainly staged entertaining performances, such as the Singspiel Das Donauweibchen , in which the only seven-year-old Constanze Le Gaye made her debut. The young Albert Lortzing and Rosina Regina Ahles also belonged to Derossi's ensemble. From 1829 Karl Leberecht Immermann gave the theater more serious impulses. Between 1831 and 1836 he worked here with Christian Dietrich Grabbe and developed the artistic concept of the Immermann model stage , which made theater history. In 1834, Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy and Julius Rietz worked in Immermann's ensemble as conductors, a rendant, a theater doctor, ten men as technical staff, 20 actors and 11 actresses, nine singers and three singers, ten male and seven female choristers.

The government building councilors Vagedes and Götz submitted plans to build a new theater building. The plans were discarded and it was decided to rebuild the old theater. In 1831 the corresponding work was carried out on the old foundry house. The construction costs amounted to 20,000 thalers. In 1832, based on a design by Vagedes' student Anton Schnitzler, a classical portico with a tympanum on four Ionic columns was placed in front of the main facade. Today the entrance to the city council of Düsseldorf is in this area.

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Josef Wolter: Immermann's direction of the Düsseldorf City Theater . In: Contributions to the history of the Lower Rhine. Journal of the Düsseldorf History Association . Seventeenth Volume, Düsseldorf 1902, p. 217 ff. ( Online )
  2. ^ Hugo Weidenhaupt: From the French to the Prussian times. In: Hugo Weidenhaupt (Ed.): Düsseldorf. History from the origins to the 20th century. Schwann in Patmos Verlag, Düsseldorf 1988, ISBN 3-491-34222-8 , Volume 2, p. 401

Web links

literature

  • Architects and Engineers Association of Düsseldorf (ed.): Düsseldorf and its buildings. L. Schwann, Düsseldorf 1904, pp. 68 and 282
  • Boris Becker: Düsseldorf in early photographs 1855–1914. Schirmer / Mosel, Munich 1990. Plate 27
  • Theo Lücker: Stones speak. Small signpost through Düsseldorf's old town. Verlag T. Ewers, Düsseldorf 1977, pp. 86-87 [No. 42 The first Düsseldorfer Schauspielhaus].

Coordinates: 51 ° 13 ′ 33.3 "  N , 6 ° 46 ′ 17.5"  E