Open-air theater (Augsburg)

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Panorama shot of the open-air theater at the Red Gate.

The open-air theater at the Red Gate is one of the most famous open - air theaters in Germany. With the Red Gate , the ramparts and the Heilig-Geist-Spital in the background, it has a picturesque medieval backdrop.

The open-air stage has 2117 seats and is played annually from mid-June to the end of July by the Augsburg Theater with operas , operettas and musicals . In addition, guest performances and concerts take place in front of the historic backdrop of the Bastion at the Red Gate.

history

The open-air stage in winter and at night

In 1928, Hans Alfred Steib , the then head of the tourist association (today Regio Augsburg Tourismus GmbH ), organized open-air plays in front of St. Ulrich and Afra , based on the Salzburg model of Hugo von Hofmannsthal . Which was performed everyone .

Built in 1929

At the suggestion of the director of the Münchner Kammerspiele, Otto Falckenberg , the Augsburg city council decided in May 1929 to convert the moat at the Red Gate into an open-air theater. The mayor Friedrich Ackermann also played a major role in this decision . The construction of the open-air theater was paid for with funds from the Friedrich-Prinz-Fonds .

First performances

In 1929 the stage was opened as a summer venue for the Augsburg Theater. There was talk of the Augsburg Festival in the amphitheater in front of the Red Gate . The first play on August 3, 1929, was the Imitation Christ play directed by Otto Falckenberg . A few days later, Ludwig van Beethoven's Fidelio was performed. The Munich-Augsburger Abendzeitung called the open-air theater the most beautiful open-air theater in Germany .

However, the project was not crowned with financial success in the following years, so that the performances on the open-air stage were stopped again. In 1932, artists from the municipal theaters of Augsburg got together and dared to perform new performances on the open-air stage on their own account.

The time of the 3rd Reich

At the time of National Socialism , national consecration plays, as well as operas and plays, were performed on the open-air stage. During that time, up to a dozen pieces were played each season. Richard Strauss himself visited Augsburg in 1936 and conducted Elektra on the open-air stage . For the National Socialists, the performances on the open-air stage were so-called Reich Important Games . From 1940 on there were still game interruptions due to the war. It was not until 1946 that annual performances began again on the Augsburg summer parquet.

Post-war until today

The 1950s and 1960s were the days of great Italian operas on the open-air stage, and stars from Verona liked to perform here. In the last few decades there have been more and more operettas, operas and musicals on the program.

Regularly leads Philharmonic Choir Augsburg in the summer months, the Carmina Burana by Carl Orff on.

For the 80th anniversary ( 2009 ), Beethoven's Fidelio was again on the program in the Augsburg Theater . In the same year an expert opinion for the stage floor had determined the danger of collapse, whereupon the renovation was ordered in an emergency decree of the mayor.

Performances in recent times

Web links

Commons : Freilichtbühne (Augsburg)  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Details on the Augsburg open-air theater ( memento of the original from August 21, 2010 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. on the side of the Theater Augsburg @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / theater1.augsburg.de
  2. ^ Verdi's Troubadour in place of Rigoletto Augsburger Allgemeine, accessed January 5, 2011
  3. ^ Theater Augsburg: Music theater: Rocky Horror Show, musical by Richard O'Brien. (No longer available online.) In: www.theater-augsburg.de. Archived from the original on September 13, 2016 ; accessed on September 4, 2016 . Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.theater-augsburg.de

Coordinates: 48 ° 21 ′ 33 ″  N , 10 ° 54 ′ 10 ″  E