Brandenburger Theater
The Brandenburger Theater ( BT for short ) is a theater in the city of Brandenburg an der Havel . BT celebrates its 200th anniversary in the 2017/18 season , but has not had its own acting ensemble since the late 1990s . However, the Brandenburg Theater, among other things, is home to the Brandenburg Symphony Orchestra . The home venue is the CulturCongressCentrum of the city of Brandenburg.
history
First city theater (1817 to 1862)
The theater tradition of the Brandenburg theater dates back to 1817. In that year the city theater was founded in the city of Brandenburg. The first performance took place on October 5th. Maria Stuart was performed by Friedrich Schiller under the direction of August Breede, who had previously directed another private theater establishment in the city . The new theater had been built on the site of an existing hospital . The operator was a specially founded municipal stock corporation .
On March 24, 1824, a fire broke out in the city theater . Theater director Wilhelm Gerstel and the drama troupe then left the city. The repair of the damage took about a year and a half. The theater was finally reopened on August 14, 1825, with Caroline Leutner, previously director of the Poznan drama and opera company and former director of the theater in Frankfurt (Oder) , taking over.
In 1829 the operating stock corporation was dissolved and the theater was sold for 3,275 thalers . The new owners, two master craftsmen from the city, alternately leased the theater. In addition to acting , operas were also repeatedly performed in the theater.
Exemplary performances in the mid-19th century were:
- from 1824 Der Freischütz , Carl Maria von Weber
- from December 12, 1836 Faust , Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
- from February 17, 1839 The broken jug , Heinrich von Kleist
- from December 27, 1850 Käthchen von Heilbronn , Heinrich von Kleist
- The mutes from Portici , Daniel-François-Esprit Auber
- Tsar and carpenter , Albert Lortzing
- The armorer , Albert Lortzing
- Oberon , Carl Maria von Weber
Due to years of financial problems, the city theater was finally closed in 1862 after a gradual decline.
Summer theater (1855 to 1912)
At the same time, however, since 1855, on a private initiative, a second theater facility had been established in the Tivoli inn in the city as a summer theater, initially on an open-air stage . The venue was named Ahlert's Berg after the operator. This private theater was initially used until August 21, 1870, when it had to be closed in the course of the Franco-Prussian War . From 1872 the summer theater was resumed and established. The theater in Bergstrasse at the gates of the old town of Brandenburg had 580 seats. By 1912 it had been used in around 7,000 performances.
Second City Theater (1909 to 1944)
In 1909 the New Theater was opened in Blumenstrasse as a winter stage in the former Apollotheater, a variety and dance hall. The opening performance of this second official city theater was The Bride of Messina by Friedrich Schiller. In 1912 the New Theater was renamed the City Theater. It remained at the location in Blumenstrasse until 1944, until shortly before the end of the Second World War , before it was closed by order of Joseph Goebbels, as were other theater facilities in the country. The stage was closed on September 16, 1944. In April 1945, shortly before the end of the war, the theater building on Blumenstrasse was destroyed during the fighting for the city of Brandenburg.
Municipal theaters of Brandenburg / Havel to Brandenburg Theater (from 1945)
1945 to 1967 Municipal Theaters Brandenburg / Havel and Theater of the City of Brandenburg / Havel
Just a few months after the end of the war, from August 1, 1945, the theater was resumed. Without a theater, the ensemble with a total of 46 women and men played emergency theaters such as the former town hall in Grabenstrasse or the Bismarck Terraces in Bergstrasse. In the first season after the end of the war, 11 plays were staged in 67 performances. Among these were judgment of Julius Hay , What do you want from William Shakespeare , Mary Magdalene by Friedrich Hebbel and The Beaver Coat of Gerhart Hauptmann . In addition, 8 operettas , 4 fairy tales and 87 special events were performed or performed. The town hall in Grabenstraße from Theaterort was increasingly established. In 1947 the Bund der Deutschen Volksbühne was founded in Berlin , to which the institution renamed as Städtische Bühnen Brandenburg / Havel belonged. The population took part in the construction of the Volksbühne in the following years . Furniture and clothing were made available through donations, as the entire theater fund of the city theater had been lost due to the destruction at the end of the world war.
In September 1948 the young stage was founded by young actors from the municipal theaters under the direction of Elfi Brundiers. This put on 15 events as a factory theater for large companies in Brandenburg. One of the first works was the staging of Fear and Misery of the Third Reich by Bertolt Brecht .
In 1952 major work was carried out on the former town hall in order to convert it more and more into a real theater. On November 9, 1952, at the opening of the festival week of Soviet drama in Brandenburg, Kretschinski's wedding by Alexander Wassiljewitsch Suchowo-Kobylin was performed throughout Germany. Around 50 percent of the theater goers in the 1952/1953 season were members of the Volksbühne. The Volksbühne in Brandenburg was then dissolved and instead a new form of operating rights, the direct link between the theater and businesses in the city, was established. The Brandenburg / Havel Municipal Theaters were renamed the Theaters of the City of Brandenburg / Havel.
In 1953, the state of the building in Grabenstrasse was still unsatisfactory for permanent theater operation, and the People's Police closed it down . State funds were made available for further construction work. In 1957 the 140th anniversary of the Brandenburger Theater was celebrated. In this context, Bertolt Brecht's Caucasian Chalk Circle was listed.
From 1967 Brandenburger Theater
On September 1, 1967, for the 150th anniversary season, the theater was renamed the Brandenburger Theater. In the 1970s there were regular guest performances in Rathenow and Kyritz . In the 1972/73 season Der Mann von La Mancha by Mitch Leigh , Dale Wasserman and Joe Darion premiered simultaneously in Brandenburg and Leipzig GDR- wide. From 1978 to 1981, among others, the young Frank Castorf worked as a director at the Brandenburg Theater. In 1978, he staged Golden Flows of Steel by Karl Grünberg (directed with Manfred Rafeldt) and in 1980, Professor Taratoga's research trip by Stanislaw Lem . Other directors in the late 1970s and early 1980s were Dieter Wardetzky and Herbert König . 1979, premiere of the play The wild paths of Albert Wendt .
After the political change in 1989, there was also a change at BT. Among other things, the puppeteer Wolfgang Rudolph established the puppet stage in the house. In 1994 the Brandenburger Symphoniker went on tour to the USA for the first time with General Music Director Heiko Mathias Förster . On October 29, 1994, theater operations began on the newly built studio stage behind the theater. The first production was La cage aux Folles . In 1996 the city founded the Brandenburger Theater GmbH as the operator of the BT, of which it is the sole shareholder. A year later, the old theater was demolished in favor of a new building for the CulturCongressCentrum, which became the new home of the Brandenburg Theater. During the new building phase, due to the financial situation, the majority of the BT's employees were laid off and the artistic divisions dissolved. On June 15, 1999, the last performance of their own ensemble was performed, which was released a day later.
Brandenburg specializes in music theater and the Brandenburg Symphony Orchestra within the theater and concert association of the State of Brandenburg, which was founded by state treaty in 2000 , to which the Hans Otto Theater in Potsdam and the Kleist Forum in Frankfurt (Oder) belong in addition to the BT . Within the theater association, the other theaters are also featured with guest performances, which in turn also regularly perform guest performances in Brandenburg. The first production of the Brandenburger Theater with regular guest performances within the theater association in Potsdam and Frankfurt was Im Weiße Rössl by Ralph Benatzky . On February 13, 2004 the play McKinsey comes by Rolf Hochhuth premiered . The opera Kleist by Rainer Rubbert also premiered at the BT in March 2008. In 2015, the 25th annual Puppet Theater Days took place at the Brandenburg Theater and in the 2017/18 season the BT celebrated its 200th anniversary.
Brandenburg Symphony Orchestra
The tradition of the Brandenburg Symphony Orchestra goes back to 1810. They are the oldest existing orchestra in the state of Brandenburg and are counted among the formative cultural institutions. Peter Gülke , winner of the Ernst von Siemens Music Prize , was chief conductor of the orchestra from the beginning of the 2015/2016 concert season . In this function he replaced the long-time director Michael Helmrath . For the 2020/21 concert season, Olivier Tardy took over as chief conductor of the Brandenburg Symphony Orchestra. His contract is valid until the end of the 2024/25 season. In 2017 members from ten nations belonged to the Brandenburg Symphony Orchestra. Guest concerts have been given in Beijing , Los Angeles , San Francisco , Madrid , Sofia , Cape Town , Johannesburg and Kyoto , for example . The Brandenburg Symphony Orchestra is a regular guest at the MúsicaMallorca Festival or the Rheinsberg Castle Chamber Opera .
Youth theater
The youth theater of the Brandenburg Theater has existed at BT since the late 1980s. This should offer the possibility that young amateur actors can work in the theater under professional conditions. The young actors are given the opportunity to use all departments, trades and the premises of the house. So they can use the stage technology , lighting, sound and tailoring of the BT. In the mid-1990s and again from 2001 to 2017, the youth theater was directed by Christiane Ziehl . Well-known members who played in the youth theater at a young age were, for example, Stephan Schäfer , Theresa Scholze , Caroline Scholze or Ina Tempel . Steffan Drotleff has been director since the 2017/18 season . The youth theater of the Brandenburg Theater repeatedly performed guest performances at various locations in Brandenburg and Berlin and worked with the Berlin Brandenburg radio .
- Awards
- 2004 Brandenburg Theater Prize
- 2013 Pegasus Prize of the 17th Cottbusser Student Art Days
- 2014 Golden Papageno - Grand Prize for the play The Story of the Soldier
- 2015 Goldener Papageno - Best production for the play Spring Awakening in the musical theater category
Citizens' stage
The Brandenburg Theater has had an amateur theater group for a long time. This was renamed or upgraded to the Bürgerbühne in the 2016/17 season. The model was the Dresdner Bürgerbühne, which has been involving the people of the city in professionally guided theater work since 2009.
The first staging of the Bürgerbühne was the play jacket like pants by Manfred Karge based on the film of the same name . The director of the Brandenburg Bürgerbühne is the Munich director Boris von Poser .
CulturCongressCentrum
The home of the Brandenburg Theater has been the CulturCongressCentrum in Grabenstrasse 14 since 2000. It was opened on June 16 after a construction period of around three years. It was built in place of the old stage building, which was demolished in 1997. This was created after the Second World War through renovations and extensions of the existing town hall. The studio stage, which opened on October 29, 1994, was integrated into the CulturCongressCentrum with a separate entrance in Kanalstrasse. The building has a total of four stages:
- Large house
- Studio stage
- Puppet stage
- Rehearsal stage
The foyers of the Great House and the studio stage are also regularly used. Other venues in the city, such as the Brandenburg Cathedral or the former St. Pauli Monastery, serve as a venue and backdrop , especially in the summer months .
Directors after 1945 (incomplete)
- Heinz Schien 1945
- Wolrad Rube from 1946
- Curt Asmus-Bach from 1948
- Heinz Vogt from 1950
- Friedhelm Wolff from 1953
- Franz Broesicke from 1958 to 1966
- Albert Bussmann from 1966
- Gerhard Wruck in 1970
- Joachim Pollock 1976 to 1986
- Bernd Götz from 1987
- Lothar Schlimme from 1989 (officiating)
- Ekkehard Prophet 1990 to 1994
- Harald Arnold from 1994 (officiating)
- Michael Muhr from 1995
- Wolfgang Ansel from 1998
- Thomas Höft from 1999
- Christian Kneisel from 2001
Web links
Individual evidence
- ↑ 185 years of theater in Brandenburg . Editing: Christa Kühne, Steffen Krekler, Bernd Keßler. Accessed January 15, 2018.
- ↑ Christine Dössel: When the frustrated man rings twice ( Memento from May 31, 2014 in the Internet Archive ) . In: Süddeutsche Zeitung of February 16, 2004.
- ↑ 25th Brandenburger Puppet Theater Days 2015 . stg-brandenburg.de. Accessed January 16, 2018.
- ↑ Brandenburger Symphoniker get new chief conductor. In: rbb-online.de . April 14, 2020, accessed July 13, 2020 .
- ↑ Brandenburger Symphoniker . brandenburgertheater.de. Accessed January 16, 2018.
- ↑ Brandenburg Youth Theater . brandenburgertheater.de. Accessed January 16, 2018.
- ↑ Brandenburger Bürgerbühne . brandenburgertheater.de. Accessed January 17, 2018.
- ↑ Benno Rougk: There will be lively music in the 2017/18 season . Published on July 14, 2017 in Märkische Allgemeine . Accessed January 17, 2018.
- ↑ Venues ( Memento from January 17, 2018 in the Internet Archive ). brandenburgertheater.de. Accessed January 16, 2018.