Estonian Drama Theater

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The Estonian Drama Theater in Tallinn

The Estonian Drama Theater ( Estonian Eesti Draamateater ) is an important theater in Tallinn .

history

The theater goes back to the Estonian director Paul Sepp, who founded the first Estonian theater school with the drama studio in 1920 . A theater troupe emerged from the first graduates, which initially functioned as a traveling theater without a house. She moved across the country and rented various stages in Tallinn. However, this could also lead to conflicts, for example in 1937 a play by Rudolf Sirge that was to be played on the rented stage of the Deutsches Theater was canceled because some representatives of the German minority believed it was anti-German. In 1937 the name of the Drama Studio Theater was changed to Estonian Drama Theater after the theater school had been closed for economic reasons in 1933.

When the German minority left Estonia in 1939 , the building of the Tallinn German Theater became vacant. This enabled the Estonian drama theater to move into its own house for the first time. The German Theater in Tallinn has existed since 1795 and ultimately goes back to the Revaler lovers' theater , which was founded in 1784 by August von Kotzebue . It has resided in its own building on Breite Strasse in Tallinn since 1809 and moved into a modern new building a hundred years later.

Today's building

The German Theater on a postcard from 1910

The building from 1910 was built by the Saint Petersburg architects Nikolai Wassiljew and Alexei Bubyr. It is located on Pärnuer Chaussee in the immediate vicinity of the Estonia National Opera and is a prominent example of Art Nouveau architecture in Tallinn. The sculptural facades (“pushing from the inside out”) and the narrow, vertically elongated windows are characteristic. As a number of buildings were destroyed in Estonia during World War II and the main building of the Estonia National Opera dates from 1913, it is now the oldest surviving theater building in Estonia. It has a horseshoe-shaped main hall with over 430 seats, a revolving stage and orchestra pit , a small hall on the top floor with 170 seats and a rehearsal room.

With 37 actors and four full-time directors, the Estonian Drama Theater is Estonia's largest theater. Every year there are almost 500 performances, which are seen by over 100,000 spectators.

Famous pepole

bibliography

  • Artur Adson : The Estonian Theater. Tartu: Akadeemiline cooperative 1933. 64 pp.
  • Karin Hallas-Murula: Eesti Draamateater. Ehituslugu ja arhitektuur, in: Eesti Draamateatri Maja 100. Tallinn: Eesti Draamateater 2010. 203 pp.
  • Karin Kask: Eesti nõukogude teater 194–1965. Sõnalavastus. Tallinn: Eesti Raamat 1987. 591 pp.
  • Piret Kruuspere (ed.): Eesti sõnateaater 1965–1985. [Tallinn:] Eesti muusika- ja Teatriakadeemia lavakunstikool, Eesti Teatriliit, Eesti TA Underi ja Tuglase Kirjanduskeskus 2015. 752 pp.
  • Lea Tormis: Eesti theater 1920–1940. Sõnalavastus. Tallinn: Eesti Raamat 1978. 501 pp.

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Artur Adson: The Estonian Theater. Tartu: Akadeemiline cooperative 1933, pp. 57-58.
  2. ↑ See more on this: Cornelius Hasselblatt : Estonian Literature in German Translation. A reception story from the 19th to the 21st century. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz 2011. pp. 149–152, and in Estonian: Cornelius Hasselblatt: Rudolf Sirge preislastest ametnike töölaual, Eesti kirjanduse välisretseptsiooni kõrvalteid, in: Keel ja Kirjandus 2/2003, pp. 81–91.
  3. ↑ Lea Tormis: Eesti theater 1920-1940. Sõnalavastus. Tallinn: Eesti Raamat 1978, p. 128.
  4. ↑ Cornelius Hasselblatt: History of Estonian Literature. From the beginning to the present. Berlin, New York: Walter de Gruyter 2006, p. 205.
  5. ↑ Entsüklopeedia Tallinn 1. A – M. Tallinn: Eesti Entsüklopeediakirjastus 2004, pp. 46–47.
  6. ↑ Homepage of the theater, accessed on December 22, 2019.

Web links