German Theater Institute
The German Theater Institute Weimar Schloß Belvedere (DTI) was a drama school and theater college that existed in Weimar from 1947 to 1953 .
history
The order of the Soviet military administration in Germany to separate the drama school as an independent institution from the Weimar Music Academy was issued on October 28, 1947. The Belvedere Palace was assigned to the new drama school as a training facility with an attached boarding school Winter semester in November 1947. In the post-war period the institute was the first independent drama school with a university character not only in the Soviet occupation zone (SBZ), but on German soil in general; By naming it as the “German Theater Institute”, the founders underlined their claim to nationwide validity.
Maxim Vallentin , who had been in charge of the drama school that was still attached to the music academy since the resumption of teaching in the winter of 1945/46, was appointed director of the institute . Ottofritz Gaillard and Otto Lang were won over as further teachers . In the first two years, the DTI still led the Beititel "Institute for methodical revival of German theater." This "methodological renewal" in particular, the orientation was realistic program Stanislavski meant that - similar to the specification of Socialist Realism in the visual arts - In the Soviet Union it was considered a line of theater politics and should now also be implemented in the Soviet Zone. The aim of the founders was not only the practical training of ensemble actors, but also a theoretical continuation of the Stanislavskian theory, for which a special theater studies department (TWA) was founded, which started operations in May 1949. In December 1950, the institute's own studio stage was inaugurated.
With its dogmatic orientation towards Stanislawski, the DTI competed with the epic Bertolt Brechts Theater , which, with the founding of the Helene Weigel Ensemble in Berlin in 1949, brought a theatrical conception completely contrary to the DTI to the SBZ stages; Thus the DTI students were banned from visiting Brecht's production of Mother Courage , which was shown as a guest performance in several cities in the Soviet Zone / GDR, including Weimar, from 1949-50.
In 1953 the institute was merged with the Leipzig Theater School to form the Leipzig Theater Academy (from 1967 Theater Academy "Hans Otto"), which began teaching in November of that year.
The classical philologist Oskar Werner (1885 - unknown) was a lecturer in speech training at the German Theater Institute .
Productions by the DTI ensemble
The premieres of the institute ensemble (“The Young Ensemble”) initially took place in the small hall of the Weimarhalle ; There were guest performances on various Thuringian stages as well as in the new " culture houses " of industrial companies such as the Buna-Werke or the Maxhütte Unterwellenborn .
- Carlo Goldoni : Mirandolina , premiere July 14, 1948, directed by O. Lang
- Molière : The Imaginary Sick , August 27, 1948, directed by O. Lang
- Brodwin (d. I. Slatan Dudow ): Der Feigling , February 3, 1949, directed by M. Vallentin and Willy Semmelrogge
- Julius Hay : Comrade Mimi , July 5, 1949, directed by O. Lang
- Alfred de Musset : You don't play with love , October 28, 1949, directed by O. Gaillard
After the completion of the institute's own studio stage in a remise of Belvedere Palace, the premieres took place here:
- Master Pathelin , December 20, 1950
literature
- Reinhard Schau : The Weimar Belvedere. An educational institution between the time of Goethe and the present. Böhlau Verlag, Cologne / Weimar 2006, ISBN 3-412-31205-3 .