Ernst Lewinger (actor)

Ernst Lewinger (born December 28, 1851 in Vienna , † April 26, 1937 in Dresden ) was an Austrian theater actor and theater director .

Life

Lewinger comes from a Jewish family who moved from Hungary to Vienna in the first half of the 19th century. The parents were Jacob Lewinger and Fanny Benzion from Groß-Kanizsa in Zala County . Lewinger had two brothers, the lawyer Carl Lewinger, the banker Leopold Lewinger and a sister, Rosa, married Zingler. Lewinger broke off studies at the kk Polytechnic Institute in Vienna to become an actor. After a few appearances at the Kierschner Theater Academy in Vienna, he had his first major role with Don Carlos at the court theater in Gera on October 6, 1872. Thereupon he received an engagement as a youthful hero and lover there in 1873, but was also cast in comic roles. In the same year he moved to the Munich Court Theater , whose chief director Ernst von Possart had noticed him in Gera. In Munich, Lewinger gave the shy lovers and nature boys. From 1875 to 1881 he was engaged in Aachen , Danzig , Bremen , Düsseldorf , Posen and Nuremberg . But the longed-for opportunity to work at the Vienna Burgtheater was not granted to him. For this he began his career as a director at the Stadttheater in Cologne . The director Julius Hofmann recognized his talent. In 1882 Lewinger became a theater director and in 1884 senior director. Since then he has devoted himself exclusively to directing and gave acting lessons at the conservatory . Due to the reputation he had earned in Cologne, he was appointed as a director at the Royal Saxon Court Theater in Dresden in 1897 . During the era of artistic director Nikolaus von Seebach , Ernst Lewinger's naturalistic directorial style shaped the national fame of Dresden's theater life in the field of drama, for whose musical theatrical charisma the collaboration between Richard Strauss and his world premiere conductor Ernst Edler von Schuch was decisive. In 1900 he became senior director and was most recently senior director. Shortly before the abdication, the Saxon king awarded him the title of professor. In 1906 he was awarded the Order of Merit of St. Michael and the Cross of Merit. Ernst Lewinger was on the artistic advisory board of the Saxon State Theater, which opened on February 23, 1919 in the State Theater in Dresden. An exchange of letters with his Viennese friend Katharina Schratt was burned in the bombing raids on Dresden . Ernst Lewinger's grave is in the Trinity Cemetery in Dresden. His widow Auguste Pauline Gertrud Lewinger, née Schneider, lived in the congregation of the Nazareth Sisters of St. Francis in Goppeln near Dresden. The graphic artist of the same name Ernst Lewinger is a grandson of Lewinger.

Artistic work as a director

"A very serious man was the director Ernst Lewinger, who came to Cologne in 1881 and stayed for 16 years. He struggled with the balance between art and cash in the leased, profit-dependent city theater. Wanted the works of the classics and contemporary authors he serve, and the key to this was intensive work with actors, including arguments. Quote from his soothing call for order from 1890 to the ensemble: “I made it up for myself that I was not blamed for an upsurge in the zeal of work I never remembered the same reply. ”“ Rainer Hartmann, Aufbruch in der Schmierstrasse, in Kölner Stadtanzeiger on November 30, 2007 When he left Cologne, he gave 100 director's books with handwritten entries to the Cologne theater. This inventory is now kept in the Theater Studies Collection of the University of Cologne .

Lewinger had staged 230 plays in Dresden when he retired with the transformation of the court theater into the Saxon State Theater in 1918, including many premieres and world premieres. In addition to the contemporary theaters of German and Scandinavian naturalism ( Hauptmann , Strindberg , Ibsen , Harlan, etc.), his focus was primarily on the works of William Shakespeare , Heinrich von Kleist, and Schiller and Goethe , some of which he also adapted for the stage. His naturalistic interpretation of the expressionist war drama "The Sea Battle" by Reinhard Göring caused a Dresden theater scandal . Advised by a marine specialist, Lewinger had the mutiny re-enacted in the tank turret of a large cruiser, with gunfire and scuffle. After a non-public performance in front of the literary society on February 10, 1918, further performances were prohibited by the royal ministry. A month later, the play by Max Reinhardt was made a success at the Deutsches Theater in Berlin .

According to the Austrian Biographical Lexicon, "L. was a sensitive director whose productions always proceeded from the poet's words and were always characterized by a purposeful ensemble play."

“For Ernst Lewinger, the“ best director ”is“ the one who is least noticeable. ”His aim is to bring the“ intention of poetry ”to the stage and to attract the audience's attention to the play and the actors they shouldn't be distracted by lavish décor and elaborate costumes. The educated director must also have a great deal of sensitivity when creating the schedule. "

Fonts

• Shakespeare's royal dramas for the stage, edited and edited by Ernst Lewinger and Rolf Roenneke , ten volumes, with stage plans, L. Ehlermann, Leipzig Dresden Berlin, no year
• Ernst Lewinger, The Ancestral Gallery in the State Playhouse in Dresden. C. Heinrich, Dresden, 1933

literature

• L .: Eisenberg; Kosch, Theaterlex .; Who is it 1908
• B. Wildberg, The Dresden Court Theater in the Present, 1902, p. 18 ff.
• JF Wolf, theater. From 10 years of acting in Dresden, 1913
• Saxon. State Theater. Review of the 1936/37 season, 1937, p. 51
• Diary of the Saxons. State theater from 1918, 1918, p. 88 ff.
• Elmar Buck , Daniela Franke et al., Cologne - The city and its theater, places people, opera, drama, dance, M. Faste Verlag, Kassel 2007, ISBN 3-931691-47-0 , p. 107ff "The direction reaches Cologne : the senior director Ernst Lewinger "

• Sebastian Hennig (painter) : Ernst Lewinger - In connectedness floating (1931–2015). Arnshaugk Verlag, Neustadt an der Orla, 2016 ISBN 978-3-944064-61-1 ., 224 pp.

Web links

• Handwritten letter signed by Ernst Lewinger
• Portrait photography by Erwin Raupp

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Austrian Biographical Lexicon. Institute for Modern and Contemporary History Research, accessed on December 31, 2019 . 
2. ^ Rainer Hartmann: Departure in the Schmierenstrasse. November 30, 2007, accessed December 31, 2019 . 
3. ↑ Individual collections. Philosophical Faculty, Theater Studies Collection, accessed on December 31, 2019 . 
4. ^ Austrian Biographical Lexicon: Ernst Lewinger. Accessed December 31, 2019 . 
5. ↑ Daniela Franke: The direction reaches Cologne: The senior director Ernst Lewinger . M. Faste, 2007, ISBN 3-931691-47-0 .