Christiane Becker-Neumann
Christiane Luise Amalie Becker-Neumann , (born December 15, 1778 in Crossen an der Oder in Neumark , † September 22, 1797 in Weimar ) was a German actress trained by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe .
Live and act
Christiane Neumann was born on December 15, 1778 as the daughter of the actors and actresses Johann Christian and Johanna Elisabeth Neumann in Crossen an der Oder . Her father was the director of an acting troupe and taught her acting from childhood. Christiane made her stage debut in 1784 and played various children's roles.
In the same year she came with her sisters and parents to the Bellomoschen Theater troupe in Weimar, whose theater hall in Wilhelmsburg Castle had burned to the ground in 1774 and the redouten and comedy house built in 1779 opposite the Wittumspalais was given a new stage.
Training by Corona Schröter and Goethe
Neumann made her debut in Weimar in 1787 at the age of nine in the title role of J. Engels' noble boy . She liked the role so much that the Duchess Anna Amalia commissioned the famous singer and actress Corona Schröter to train the girl. Schröter not only taught her, but took her in for two years up to the age of 11.
After the establishment of the Weimar Court Theater in 1791, Neumann was taken over at the age of thirteen, together with her father and other actors, by the house under Goethe's directorate. After the surprising death of her father, Goethe personally took over her further acting training. To him she was "the loveliest, most natural talent that begged me for training" . For her sake, according to his own testimony, he often overcame theater fatigue.
Marriage to Heinrich von Blumenthal alias Heinrich Becker
In 1793, at the age of fifteen, Neumann married Heinrich von Blumenthal , who worked as a director and actor at the Weimar Court Theater and was generally known as Becker . Since that year she was undisputedly the first lover of funeral and comedy.
Shortly after the birth of her first daughter in 1794, she was back on stage. Her most brilliant roles included Emilia Galotti and Minna von Barnhelm from Lessing's dramas of the same name , Amalia in Die Räuber , Luise in Kabale und Liebe and Princess Eboli in Don Carlos by Friedrich Schiller , Klärchen in Goethe's Egmont and Ophelia in Shakespeare's Hamlet . Wieland was so enthusiastic about her that he judged:
"If it only progresses like this for a few more years, Germany will soon only have one actress."
Friedrich Wilhelm Gotter , who was friends with her, compared her to Charlotte Ackermann .
In June 1796 their second daughter was born, but she died soon after. During the summer of 1797, Becker-Neumann fell ill during a guest performance in Lauchstädt, where signs of tuberculosis increased. She had her last stage appearance in Weimar in the role of Euphrosyne in the play The Petermännchen . Christiane Becker-Neumann was sent home to recover on August 18th. She died at the age of eighteen as a result of the disease and was buried in the Jakobsfriedhof in Weimar .
The painter Carl Friedrich Heinrich Werner is her grandson.
Goethe and Christiane Becker-Neumann
Because of her natural grace, Becker-Neumann became the model for many of his dramatic girl figures for Goethe. In a letter to the Weimar general director Böttiger, the poet reveals:
“... so I certainly had her in front of my eyes and my girls and women formed themselves according to her and her characteristics. There can be greater talents, but not a more graceful one for me. "
The poet not only valued Becker-Neumann for her strong artistic expressiveness, but also felt passionately drawn to her. In a letter a few years later he confesses:
"I headed the theater for 22 years without allowing myself a weakness against an actrise, several of which, especially Euphrosyne and the Wolff , made it very close to me."
Portrait and memory
After her death, Goethe, who was on a journey through Switzerland, remembered the artist in the distiches of his elegy Euphrosyne (1797):
“(...) Lébe wóhl! I'm already tired of it in a wavering haste.
Just listen to one wish, kindly grant me:
Don't let me go to the dumps!
Only the muse grants some life to death.
The shape-less float around in Pérsephonéias
Réiche mássenwéis Schátten, separated by the name;
Whenever the diver perceives, who wanders, forms,
singles, joins the choir of heroes.
I walk happily, proclaimed by your Líede,
and the Góettin Blíck wéilet please mír.
Míld she receives me then, and calls me; the high divine
women wave to me, always the closest to the throne.
Pénelopéia rédet to mír, the tréuste der Wéiber,
Áuch Euádne , borrowed on the lived consort.
Younger people sew up, those sent down too early,
and complain with my common fate.
Wénn Antígone comes, the sisterly of the Séelen,
Únd Polýxena , trúeb nóch from the nous Tód,
See 'I as sisters án, únd step worthlessly to him;
In the tragic art they are creatures.
I have a picture too; and séine chants,
Já, they complete on mír what has failed me to live. (...) "
The general mourning resulted in the desire for a monument to the early completed. By collecting donations, Goethe, Franz Kirms and Karl August Böttiger made it possible for the Gotha-based sculptor Friedrich Wilhelm Eugen Döll , based on Johann Heinrich Meyer's drawing , to build on the Rosenhügel at Rothäuser Garten, an eastern mountain slope that is no longer part of the park, in 1800 created Euphrosyne monument could be erected. This was copied by Gottlieb Elster and his students in 1912 . The copy is in the park on the Ilm not far from the property line of Goethe's garden house and the street Am Horn and was donated by Marie von Wildenbruch , the wife of the writer Ernst von Wildenbruch.
From 1800 the memorial stood opposite the castle. The original has been in the historical cemetery in Weimar behind Goethe's final resting place in the Weimar Princely Crypt since 1950 .
literature
- August Förster: Becker, Christiane . In: Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie (ADB). Volume 2, Duncker & Humblot, Leipzig 1875, p. 221.
- Hans Knudsen : Becker, née Neumann, Christiane Louise Amalie. In: New German Biography (NDB). Volume 1, Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 1953, ISBN 3-428-00182-6 , p. 713 ( digitized version ).
- Hans Wahl , Anton Kippenberg : Goethe and his world. Insel, Leipzig 1932, p. 154.
Web links
- Appreciation in Mitteldeutscher Rundfunk ( Memento from January 21, 2003 in the Internet Archive )
Individual evidence
- ↑ Werner, Carl Friedrich Heinrich . In: Hans Vollmer (Hrsg.): General lexicon of fine artists from antiquity to the present . Founded by Ulrich Thieme and Felix Becker . tape 35 : Libra-Wilhelmson . EA Seemann, Leipzig 1942, p. 404 .
- ↑ Quoted from: Karl Alt: Goethe's works. Part one: poems . Edited by Eduard Scheidemantel. German publishing house Bong & Co., Berlin / Leipzig / Vienna / Stuttgart no year, pp. 143–144
- ^ Susanne Müller-Wolff: A landscape garden in the Ilmpark: The history of the ducal garden in Weimar . Cologne-Weimar-Vienna 2007, pp. 246-249. ISBN 978-3-412-20057-2
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Becker-Neumann, Christiane |
| ALTERNATIVE NAMES | Becker-Neumann, Christiane Luise Amalie (full name) |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | German actress |
| DATE OF BIRTH | December 15, 1778 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Crossing the Oder , Neumark |
| DATE OF DEATH | September 22, 1797 |
| Place of death | Weimar |