Catharina Velten

Catharina Elisabeth Velten (born around 1646/1650; died around 1712/1715 probably in Vienna ) was a German actress and theater director. She led the traveling troupe of the High German court comedians from 1692 to 1712.

Life

Catharina Elisabeth Paulsen was the daughter of the theater principal Carl Andreas Paulsen (1620–1679), in whose theater troupe she appeared as a child. She was considered to be remarkably well educated. Around 1671 she married the Magister Johannes Velten (also: Velt [h] e [i] m ) who had belonged to her father's troop since around 1665. Their daughter, born in 1675, was called Catharina Lydia .

Around 1672 Velten founded his own theater company, the Hofcomödianten, and in 1678 took over the company of his late father-in-law Paulsen. After Velten's death, in 1693, Catharina Velten took over the principality of the troupe, which was considered to be one of the best in the German-speaking area and initially continued to perform primarily in Electoral Saxony , where it had theater privileges. After losing this monopoly, Velten had to assert itself against tough competition and combined this with a lot of travel activity. That is why the court comedians from around 1700 were very active in the Baltic States (including Danzig , Königsberg , Riga , Copenhagen , Stockholm ) in addition to their court duties in Saxony , but there were also trips to Poland and southern Germany. The Scandinavian stage culture was significantly shaped by the court comedians; it is probably the first professional theater group to appear in Norway. Due to high debts and poor health, “the Velthemin” had to finally disband their troops in Vienna in 1712. She was cared for there by her colleague Elisabeth Spiegelberg and died soon afterwards. The actors Johann Christian Spiegelberg and Leonhard Andreas Denner , previously employed by Velten, took over a large part of the troupe.

Around 1701, Catharina Velten wrote a pamphlet against the Lutheran Orthodox clergy , which was considered unusually direct at the time (“Testimony to the Truth before the Drama”) . The Magdeburg deacon and preacher Johann Joseph Winckler (* December 23, 1670 in Luckau; † August 11, 1722 in Leipzig) had previously excluded actors as "arch sinners" from the Eucharist and confession in a script that was hostile to theater , a position shared by many Orthodox Lutherans was shared and taken over. Velten countered this in her treatise with quotations from theological works and the Bible. The defense was reprinted in 1711 and 1722 and used by actors to justify against the clergy. This reacted in the theater dispute, for example in the person of Pastor Johann Melchior Goeze , by hateful comments on Velten's writing and denounced them as evidence of the immorality of the theater.

literature

• Ursula Koehler-Lutterbeck; Monika Siedentopf: Lexicon of 1000 women , Bonn 2000, p. 374. ISBN 3-8012-0276-3

Web links

• Katy Schlegel: Velten (Velthen, Velthemin, Veltheim), Catharina Elisabeth . In: Institute for Saxon History and Folklore (Ed.): Saxon Biography .