Bad Hersfeld Festival

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The festival stage in the monastery ruins

The Bad Hersfeld Festival takes place every year from the beginning of July to the beginning of September in Bad Hersfeld . The “ Salzburg of the North” is known nationwide.

On the 1,400 m² stage in the abbey ruins are acting , musical and theatrical performances shown for the whole family. The upholstered seating offers 1636 spectators. The mobile roof over the auditorium of the monastery ruins enables performances in any weather. In addition, a comedic play will be performed on an open-air stage in the inner courtyard of Eichhof Palace.

Beginnings

After the collegiate church of Hersfeld was destroyed in a fire in 1761, the sacred building was already a venue for celebrations with music and choirs as well as occasional theater performances during the Sturm und Drang period. These were organized by the citizens of Hersfeld. In the pre-March in the ruins of political rallies and meetings were held.

With the construction of the barracks (today the tax office) in 1864, the abbey district became barracks, so there were no performances again until 1871. Patriotic games and commemorations for Sedan Day took place. In the following years, novels by Gustav Freytag and Ernst von Wildenbruch were also organized. There were also early screenings ( praxinoscope ), for example about the rescue of Hersfeld by Lieutenant Colonel Johann Baptiste Lingg in 1807.

Due to this amateur play tradition, the director of the Hersfeld high school, Konrad Duden , tried to establish a folk festival in 1896 . This failed, but due to this initiative, the Festspielverein Hersfeld e. V. founded. This association performed pieces with a regional reference that were only written for the ruins of the monastery. These were, for example, Brother Lolls , The Abbot of Hersfeld , but also the play Vitalisnacht in 1928 independently of the Festival Association . During this time, the music teacher at the grammar school, Alfred Fischer, discovered the good acoustics in the ruins of the monastery and performed the musical melodrama Das Hexenlied (written by Ernst von Wildenbruch) thirteen times from 1919 to 1939 . He staged the melodrama for the evening hours by torchlight. Fischer performed The Seasons in 1919 , The First Walpurgis Night in 1927 and The Creation in 1932 . Due to the developing spa business, the ruins were also used for concert performances.

The 1930s were marked by mystifying Heimat- und Schollen games. For example, the play Der Heilige Grund (a scenic play by Karl Schmidt) was performed for the city's anniversary in 1936 . In May 1936 the director Franz Ulbrich (also director of the State Theater in Berlin and former director of the National Theater and the Weimar Festival) performed Faust I in front of 3,000 spectators, followed in August 1936 by stops from Faust I and Faust II . The performances this year have already been described as a festival, with a group of Berlin actors also traveling. The play The Hour of the Emperor (written by Erich Brauer under the musical direction of Hans Pretsch) took place with actors from Berlin and Munich.

In World War II there were no performances in the monastery ruins. But just a few months after the end of the war, cultural life in the city began again, with concerts in the town hall. From 1946 to 1948 the Kassel State Theater was a permanent guest here . In 1947 the ruins of the monastery were used for outdoor church services and in September 1949 a Goethe Festival week was held for Goethe's 200th birthday . They were initiated by a few people interested in culture. The director was Franz Ulbrich (at that time director in Kassel ). This festival week is considered to be the birth of the festival, which is still taking place today.

Festival seasons

1951 to 1959

In 1951 Johannes Klein from Salzburg was hired as artistic director. He was a student of Max Reinhardt . Klein and the association “Society of Friends of the Abbey Ruins” founded the festival based on the model of the Salzburg Mystery Games. Klein gave his performances additional drama by using the atmosphere of the monastery ruins at dusk. Until the mid-1960s, it was customary to leave the ruin devoutly and without applause after the performance.

Klein used his connection to Salzburg and brought actors Lil Dagover , Paula Wessely , Hannsgeorg Laubenthal , Albin Skoda , Attila Hörbiger , Elisabeth Flickenschildt , Birgit Nilsson and Ida Ehre , among others, to Germany's largest wooden stage.

The festival has been under the patronage of the Federal President since 1952 and was opened by Theodor Heuss that year . In 1954 he gave a speech in the monastery ruins on the 25th anniversary of Hugo von Hofmannsthal's death . The first opera, Fidelio , was performed in 1953. In 1954 there were four performances for the first time. In 1957, Romeo and Juliet was broadcast on German, Austrian and Swiss television. In 1958 Willy Brandt opened the festival and in 1959, the last year of Klein's directorship, Winifred Wagner attended the festival.

1960 to 1965

From 1960, Hollywood director William Dieterle took over the management. During this time Dieterle brought Bettina Feddersen , Hilde Krahl , Erika Pluhar , Witta Pohl and Klausjürgen Wussow to Bad Hersfeld. Heinrich Lübke opened the festival in 1960 and attended it in 1961 and 1963.

Dieterle brought in 1961 with the Midsummer Night's Dream by Shakespeare , the first comedy to the stage. But it was still customary not to applaud or laugh in the ruined monastery.

The Hersfeld Prize has been awarded annually to actors by the city of Bad Hersfeld since 1962 .

1966 to 1975

With the arrival of Ulrich Erfurth (student of Gustaf Gründgens and general director of the municipal theaters in Frankfurt) as director in 1966, the custom of leaving the monastery ruins without applause was ended. This year the program booklet said: "From this season we would like to refrain from the previous practice of not expressing applause in the ruins of the monastery."

Erfurth achieved great success with the comedy What you want from Shakespeare with Theo Lingen . In 1969 Gustav Heinemann took over the patronage and in 1975, the 25th anniversary of the festival, Erfurth was awarded the Federal Cross of Merit.

During these years you could see Theo Lingen, Götz George , Walter Giller , Volker Lechtenbrink , Karlheinz Böhm , Gerlinde Locker , Nicole Heesters and Will Quadflieg on the stage of the monastery ruins .

1976 to 1981

The director of the Deutsches Theater in Göttingen , Günther Fleckenstein , took over the management of the festival from 1976. In 1977, the year Carl Zuckmayer died , Fleckenstein gave a speech about Zuckmayer's work and a Zuckmayer exhibition organized as part of the festival was opened by Alice Herdan , von Zuckmayer's wife. In 1978, the President of the Federal Council, Gerhard Stoltenberg, opened the festival. This year there was also a large supporting program for the festival for the first time. Festival concerts were held and exhibitions, street theater, pantomime, soirees, matinees, jazz evenings and children's theater made the festival an event that was celebrated throughout the city (Hessian Avignon). In 1981, his farewell year, Fleckenstein brought a musical to the stage for the first time with Der Mann von La Mancha .

During this time Mario Adorf , Günter Strack , Friedrich Schütter , Frank Hoffmann and Sigmar Solbach played here .

1982

In 1982 Reinhold Olszewski became director of the festival. According to Olszewski, his directorship was the high point of his career. Olszewski came from Santiago de Chile , where he was director of the local theater for a long time. He died of cancer in 1982, shortly after his first season in Bad Hersfeld.

1983

In 1983 the cabaret artist , actor and director Hans Gerd Kübel became acting director of the festival. In May 1983, 5,000 people demonstrated in the city against an alumni meeting of Waffen SS soldiers . The ensemble of the Bad Hersfeld Festival was also one of the initiators of the protest.

1984 to 1987

Karl Vibach , long-time theater director of the stage in Lübeck and the Theater des Westens , took over the management of the festival from 1984 to 1987. The musical specialist brought the musical Anatevka to the stage in 1985 with great success. From 1986 the vice-director Jochen Schmidt founded the open-air theater Schloss Eichhof , which has been the second stage of the Bad Hersfeld Festival since then.

During this time, Wolfgang Reichmann and Folker Bohnet also played here .

1988 to 1994

The most successful director to date, Peter Lotschak, began his work in the ruins of the monastery in 1988. Highlights of this time were The Merchant of Venice , Cyrano de Bergerac , directed by Jérôme Savary and with the Theater National de Challiot and Antigone in a version by Martin Walser and Edgar Selge . Lotschak brought the flair of Broadway to ruin with the musical Hair . In 1994 Lotschak temporarily ended his directorship in Bad Hersfeld.

In addition to many others, Hanna Burgwitz , Kurt Böwe , Hannes Granzer, Meike Harten, Anita Lochner and Karl-Heinz Martell could be seen on the Hersfeld stage at this time .

1995 to 1997

In 1995 Volker Lechtenbrink took over the management of the stage in Bad Hersfeld. He brought King Lear and the musical Cabaret to the stage. The play Die Rattenfänger by Carl Zuckmayer , directed by Günther Fleckenstein, was a highlight of this time. Lechtenbrink said goodbye in 1997 with the experiment The Rocky Horror Show in the ruins.

The children's theater has been performed in the ruin since 1996. It all started with the fairy tale The Robber Hotzenplotz by Otfried Preußler , which was not only popular with children.

During this time Pia Douwes , Caroline Beil , Günter Heck , Ralf Novak , Witta Pohl , Julia Richter , Hannes Wader , Jens Wawrczeck and Ralf Wolter played here .

In 1995 Lechtenbrink introduced the audience award at the Bad Hersfeld Festival.

1998

In 1999 Ingo Waszerka took over the management. He directed the musical The Black Rider by Robert Wilson , Tom Waits and William S. Burroughs . He also brought The Tragedy of King Richard III to the stage. , directed by Jérôme Savary and The Fiesco Conspiracy in Genoa , directed by David Levin. Waszerka said goodbye in 1999 because of differences with the city.

He brought Ilja Richter , Jürgen Mikol , Roland Schäfer , Albert Kitzl , Karl Kranzkowski , among many others , to the Hersfeld Festival stage.

1999 to 2005

In 1999 Peter Lotschak took over the management again. Among other things, he brought the musical Evita to the stage. It was staged by Hans Gratzer . The Evita was played by Helen Schneider . It is the most successful performance of the festival to date.

2006 to 2009

The Viennese Elke Hesse in 2006 artistic director of the festival. Among other things, she had Faust I performed under the direction of Torsten Fischer . The musical direction was Konstantin Wecker and the Mephisto was played by Rufus Beck . Axel Prahl also appeared as Mackie Messer in the Threepenny Opera . In 2007, Faust II (director: Torsten Fischer, Mephisto: Rufus Beck), Les Misérables (director: Helmuth Lohner ) and As You Like It (director: Philipp Kochheim ) were on the program. In 2007, the new venue for the Bad Hersfeld Festival was opened in the basement of the Grebe Hausrat & Eisenwaren shop on Linggplatz with Frankenstein's Monster by Friedrich Karl Waechter , directed by Michael Schachermaier . In 2008 there was Die Jungfrau von Orléans (director: Torsten Fischer), Jekyll and Hyde (director: Frank Alva Buecheler ), Romeo and Juliet (director: Arie Zinger ) on the big stage , while Minna von Barnhelm on the small open-air stage in Eichhof Palace (Director: Thomas Schendel ) was shown. In Hesse's last season in 2009, a new dramatization of the Odyssey (director: Torsten Fischer), West Side Story (director: Matthias Davids ), Das Käthchen von Heilbronn (director: Johanna Schall ) and in Schloss Eichhof Pension Schöller (director: Gerhard Alt ) shown.

In 2008, Federal President Horst Köhler opened the festival. After the 2009 season, Horst Köhler announced that he would resign from the festival's patronage. He ended the 57-year patronage of the Federal President at the Festival.

2010 to 2014

From 2010 to 2014 Holk Freytag took over the management of the festival.

Under his directorship, the children's play became a musical for the whole family. As the first production of its kind in the abbey ruins, the jungle book was so successful in 2011 that it was resumed in 2012. In 2013, The Tempest based on Shakespeare will be premiered for the whole family with children aged 6 and over. In 2014 Tobias Bungter staged Don Quixote together with Laura Quarg in the ruined monastery.

Holk Freytag was also able to win the actor and director Volker Lechtenbrink back for the Bad Hersfeld Festival. In the summer of 2012 he played King Lear under the direction of Holk Freytag and in 2013 he staged The Three Musketeers in the Abbey Ruins.

For the 2014 season he was able to engage the actresses Gerit Kling and Marie-Therese Futterknecht for the Schiller drama Maria Stuart . The world premiere of the successful novel Die Wanderhure will make its stage debut in Bad Hersfeld .

Freytag was terminated without notice in July 2014 by the Bad Hersfeld magistrate. The termination was the final escalation of a power struggle led by Mayor Thomas Fehling . At the core of this dispute were different ideas about the festival's budget.

In the meantime, however, Holk Freytag is considered to have been rehabilitated and in 2015 took over the staging of Kleist's Der zerbrochne Krug under the new artistic director Dieter Wedel .

2015 to 2017

For the seasons from 2015 to 2018 Dieter Wedel was hired as artistic director. Wedel had the auditorium and technology in the monastery ruins renewed and additional entrances and exits created for more safety, comfort and a break between the pieces. The park was illuminated and expanded to include gastronomic offers.

On June 6, 2015 the 65th Festival was opened by Hesse's Prime Minister Volker Bouffier . The opening piece was the comedy der Irrungen directed by Wedel , with actors such as Cosma Shiva Hagen , Sonja Kirchberger , Mathieu Carrière and Heinz Hoenig . With Midsummer Night's Daydreams , a play was performed in the park for the first time. In addition to professional actors such as André Eisermann and Markus Majowski, more than 40 amateur actors took part. Other pieces were Der zerbrochne Krug (with Nina Petri under the direction of the former artistic director Holk Freytag) and the musical Cabaret with Helen Schneider and Judy Winter . In the inner courtyard of Eichhof Palace , please seduce my wife! , as well as the Datterich with Helmut Markwort listed. The book café was the venue for the children's play The Owl by Franziska Reichenbacher based on a fairy tale by the Brothers Grimm .

The occupancy rate was 88 percent (77,500 viewers) and sales exceeded three million euros for the first time. Unpredictable expenses and the investment backlog in previous years resulted in a deficit of 175,000 euros (less than three percent of the total budget of six million euros).

The SPD - and Green - faction led in the City Council on November 5, 2015 audit of the deficit and therefore a de facto spending freeze so that the next day all the planning for the 2016 season have been stopped. After the financing had been secured, the planned pieces were announced on November 20, 2015: Arthur Miller's witch hunt , Krabat , Der Kredit and, for the first time, the musical My Fair Lady , as well as resumption of cabaret and summer night reveries .

The festival summer 2016 opened with sold out concerts by Johannes Oerding and Radio Doria . Witch hunt celebrated its premiere on June 24, 2016 . The ensemble included Elisabeth Lanz , Richy Müller , Motsi Mabuse , André Hennicke and Horst Janson . Jasmin Tabatabai was integrated into the piece with film sequences that were shown on a video screen. The occupancy rate was 90 percent.

In addition to Anton Rubtsov , Peter Englert and Robert Joseph Bartl, more than 100 children and young people, including refugees , played in Krabat . Franziska Reichenbacher's directorial debut Die goldene Gans was performed in a theater tent and on the "playground" The credit of Jordi Galceran , as well as summer night dreams in a revival. Our Wives by Éric Assous and Laurel & Hardy by Tom McGrath could be seen at Eichhof Castle . These and the offers on the meadow suffered from sometimes bad weather.

Robert Joseph Bartl in "Martin Luther- The attack" 2017

All performances of the musical My Fair Lady with Sandy Mölling , Cusch Jung and Ilja Richter were sold out long before the premiere. The occupancy rate was 99 percent. Despite the best visitor result in the last ten years, there was a deficit of 348,000 euros. Dieter Wedel's contract was extended until 2022.

New productions in the 67th season (2017) were Martin Luther - The Attack , Titanic - The Musical , The 39 Steps and, for children, The Brave Little Tailor ; Witchhunt and My Fair Lady were resumed . As announced on October 16, 2017, the over 100,000 visitors, an occupancy rate of almost 100 percent, and a record budget of 7.8 million euros are offset by a deficit of 600,000 euros initially. Those responsible spoke of system errors.

Since 2018

On January 22, 2018, Dieter Wedel announced his resignation as festival director with reference to the extensive reporting on himself regarding sexual assault on actresses. Shortly afterwards it became known that the Munich I public prosecutor's office had started investigations into the initial suspicion of a sexual offense that was not statute-barred.

Wedel's previous deputy, Joern Hinkel , initially took on the role of director on a provisional basis. The production planned by Wedel, The Karlos plot , was removed from the program. Instead, the festival opened on July 6th (until September 2nd) with the piece Peer Gynt by Henrik Ibsen, a "sensual, timeless, imaginative piece", as Hinkel emphasized. In the staging, u. a. André Hennicke , Christian Nickel , Nina Petri , Corinna Pohlmann , Anouschka Renzi , Claude-Oliver Rudolph , Pierre Sanoussi-Bliss and Andreas Schmidt-Schaller .

He also showed Hair as a new musical staged by Gil Mehmert, he succeeded in securing the rights for the German premiere of Shakespeare in Love for the Bad Hersfeld Festival (directed by Antoine Uitdehaag ) and he himself staged India in Eichhof Palace . Franziska Reichenbacher 's Lena's secret for the whole family was also performed in the monastery ruins . In Joern Hinkel's first season, 86 percent of the tickets were sold. Over 94,000 visitors (total capacity around 110,000) came to the festival. The revenue target of over 4.2 million euros was also achieved.

In December 2018, Joern Hinkel's contract as artistic director of the Bad Hersfeld Festival was extended to 2022.

In the 2019 season he staged The Trial by Franz Kafka in its own version in the ruined monastery. Funny Girl by Stefan Huber came on stage as a new musical . A Long Way Down based on the novel by Nick Hornby was performed in the stage version by Bettina Wilts by Christian Nickel in Eichhof Palace.

The 2020 Festival was canceled due to the COVID-19 pandemic .

Opera festival in the monastery ruins

From 1980 to 2015, Siegfried Heinrich and the Arbeitskreis für Musik eV performed two to three operas a year. The performances took place after the Bad Hersfeld Festival in August. The highlights were Salome by Richard Strauss , Fidelio by Beethoven and Die Zauberflöte by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart . In addition to the well-known soloists, the Hersfeld Festival Choir, members of the Frankfurt and Marburg Concert Choirs and the Poznan Bach Choir perform together.

See also

literature

Web links

Commons : Festspiele (Bad Hersfeld)  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Disappointment: Federal President no longer wants to be festival patron , Osthessen-News.de, September 9, 2009
  2. ^ Bad Hersfeld Holk Freytag: Power struggle in the monastery ruins , Frankfurter Rundschau, Joachim F. Tornau, July 29, 2014
  3. ↑ Holk Freytag rehabilitated
  4. ↑ Looking ahead: highly praised ex-director Holk Freytag back
  5. ↑ New director for the festival. Frankfurter Rundschau GmbH, accessed on September 23, 2014 .
  6. ^ Dpa: Turning point at Bad Hersfeld Festival . In: Abendblatt.de . June 4, 2015. Accessed June 17, 2015.
  7. ↑ jce: Bad Hersfeld Festival has opened . In: hersfelder-zeitung.de . June 6, 2015. Accessed June 17, 2015.
  8. ^ Dpa: Successful festival novelty: First play in the park . In: fnp.de . June 12, 2015. Accessed June 17, 2015.
  9. ↑ hessenschau.de: Festspiele save money under Wedel . In: hessenschau.de . October 5, 2015. Archived from the original on October 8, 2015. Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. Retrieved October 7, 2015. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / hessenschau.de
  10. ↑ hessenschau.de: Scandal at the festival - Wedel threatens to resign . In: hessenschau.de . November 6th, 2015. Archived from the original on November 9th, 2015. 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. Retrieved November 6, 2015. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / hessenschau.de
  11. ^ Hessenschau.de: Wedel opens the festival with "witch hunt" . In: hessenschau.de . November 20, 2015. Archived from the original on November 21, 2015. Info: The archive link has been inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. Retrieved November 20, 2015. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / hessenschau.de
  12. ↑ hessenschau.de: Bad Hersfeld Festival opens "witch hunt" at the beginning . In: hessenschau.de . June 25, 2016. Archived from the original on June 25, 2016. Info: The archive link has been inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. Retrieved June 25, 2016. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / hessenschau.de
  13. ↑ a b c d Intendant Wedel extends until 2022 - 23 percent more visitors. Retrieved August 26, 2016 .
  14. ↑ cdg: KRABAT in Bad Hersfeld: Experiences that will stay forever . In: Lokalo24.de . June 22nd, 2016. Archived from the original on June 29th, 2016. 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. Retrieved June 29, 2016. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / Lokalo24.de
  15. ↑ mad: So was "The Golden Goose": The pure heart conquers greed . In: hna.de . June 30, 2016. Retrieved July 5, 2016.
  16. ↑ hna.de: Three men and one dead: "Our women" celebrates its premiere at the Eichhof . In: hna.de . July 1, 2016. Retrieved July 16, 2016.
  17. ↑ hna.de: Bad Hersfeld Festival: “My Fair Lady” celebrates its premiere . In: hna.de . July 7, 2016. Retrieved July 21, 2016.
  18. ↑ hna.de: Bad Hersfeld Festival: Deficit increases by 58,000 euros . In: hna.de . April 27, 2017. Retrieved October 16, 2017.
  19. ↑ "Big Spectacle" at the Bad Hersfeld Festival: Dieter Wedel presents the 2017 schedule . In: http://www.hna.de . November 18, 2016 ( hna.de [accessed December 17, 2016]).
  20. ↑ hna.de: Bad Hersfeld Festival with huge minus . In: hna.de . October 16, 2017. Retrieved October 16, 2017.
  21. ^ Personal statement by Dieter Wedel . In: Internet presence Bad Hersfelder festival . ( bad-hersfelder-festspiele.de [accessed on January 22, 2018]).
  22. ^ Public prosecutor's office determined against Wedel FAZ on January 23, 2018, accessed on January 23, 2018
  23. ^ Hessenschau.de, Frankfurt, Germany: Bad Hersfeld Festival: Wedel piece flies out of the schedule | hessenschau.de | Culture . In: hessenschau.de . January 29, 2018 ( hessenschau.de [accessed February 2, 2018]). Bad Hersfeld Festival: Wedel piece flies out of the schedule | hessenschau.de | Culture ( Memento of the original from February 1, 2018 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link has been 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.hessenschau.de
  24. ↑ Wedel piece flies off the game board . ( hessenschau.de [accessed on May 1, 2018]).
  25. ↑ 68th Bad Hersfeld Festival opens with a red carpet. In: www.welt.de. July 6, 2018, accessed July 6, 2018 .
  26. ↑ Precision landing for the Bad Hersfeld Festival 2018 . September 4, 2018 ( hersfelder-zeitung.de [accessed September 24, 2018]).
  27. ↑ From film festivals to concerts: the cultural scene in Europe stands still. In: Tyrolean daily newspaper . April 14, 2020, accessed April 15, 2020 .
  28. ↑ swan song for the opera takes now Dieter Wedel . In: https://www.hersfelder-zeitung.de . July 28, 2015 ( hersfelder-zeitung.de [accessed September 24, 2018]).


Coordinates: 50 ° 52 ′ 0 ″  N , 9 ° 42 ′ 10 ″  E