Friedrich Praetorius

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Friedrich Prätorius (* December 14, 1902 as Carl Friedrich Wilhelm Prätorius in Chemnitz , † July 15, 1962 in Berlin ) was a German set designer, painter and graphic artist.

Career

He was the son of the commercial teacher and painter Karl Otto Prätorius (1877-1953) and Clara Hedwig, born. Flehmig (1881-1954). He had an older sister, Hedwig Hildegard Niemz (1901-1994). Prätorius was married to the theater historian and actress Cläre Pamperrien (* 1891).

After attending the Reformrealgymnasium and an apprenticeship at the municipal theaters in Chemnitz, Prätorius received his training from Adolf Mahnke and Alexander Baranowsky in the decorative painting department at the Dresden State School of Applied Arts from 1920 to 1923. In 1924 he made his debut at the Stadttheater Bamberg with Shakespeare's Midsummer Night 's Dream . In Bamberg he founded the "Atelier for Decorative Art", which he gave up when he moved to Krefeld for the 1927/28 season. He married here on October 1, 1927. In the following years he worked in Schwerin and Guben, where in 1935 he took over the direction and design of the parade on the occasion of the city's 700th anniversary. In the same year he went to the Gdansk State Theater. Here he worked as a set designer, head of equipment and costume drafts, until Harald Paulsen brought him to Berlin in 1937.

Prätorius initially worked for the Volksbühne and the theater on Nollendorfplatz. In 1938 he followed Heinrich George's call to the Schiller Theater, where he stayed until it was destroyed in 1943. Released sick from captivity, he was hired by Karl Heinz Martin in 1947 as head of equipment and first set designer at the Hebbel Theater. After Helmut Käutner had banned him from the house during the final rehearsals for The Death of a Salesman in 1950 and he had been released early, he worked as a freelancer for the comedy and the theater on Kurfürstendamm as well as for the reopened Schiller Theater and its smaller venue, the Schlosspark Theater. There were also guest appearances in Hamburg and Munich.

Friedrich Prätorius worked with many great directors: Jürgen Fehling, Heinrich George, Helmut Käutner, Karl Heinz Martin, Ernst Legal and Karl Heinz Stroux. But it was Rudolf Noelte with whom he had a long-term collaboration and with whom he celebrated his greatest successes.

In 1948, for Noelte's first directorial work, Wolfgang Borchert's homecoming drama Outside Before the Door , Prätorius created a “gloomy stage space that can only be ordered with hints”, which contributed significantly to the success of the performance. The piece, originally planned only as a studio performance, was included in the Hebbeltheater's evening program and played nineteen times; a television version followed in 1957.

In 1954 the "Festival International d'Art Dramatique" took place for the first time in Paris. The two German pieces, Mother Courage and her children from the East Berlin Brecht Ensemble and Noelte's production of Kafka's Das Schloss , were awarded the “Prix de Critiques” and were overwhelmingly celebrated. In addition, Das Schloss won the German Critics' Prize. Again, Praetorius's stage was dark and sparsely furnished. The role of the backdrop was taken over by the light - lonely cones of light, dramatic light paths and sharp grazing lights created intensity and oppression.

Praetorius was always guided by the requirements of the play and the director. His Othello from 1949 showed an almost bare stage with hints of Venice in falling lines that frightened the audience. The Karlsschüler from 1941 or Die Lustigen Frauen von Windsor from 1951, on the other hand, looked lavish and lavish, while Kästner's Emil and the detectives from the same year acted against a background that looked like colorful children's drawings.

His declining health forced Prätorius to resign professionally in recent years. From 1959 to 1961 he held lectures on stage design and theater art at the Wilmersdorfer Volkshochschule. In addition to his work for the stage, he was also active as a painter and graphic artist and was a member of the Nuremberg Secession.

Friedrich Prätorius' estate is kept in the Theater Studies Collection in Cologne. A few designs are in Bamberg and in the Deutsches Theatermuseum in Munich.

Fonts

  • “Das deutsche Bühnenbild”, in: Theater der Welt , Vol. 1, 1937, pp. 138–42. [Exhibition review]
  • “Der Bühnenbildner”, in: Wille und Macht , Volume 10, 1942, pp. 13-17.
  • Eight lectures for the Wilmersdorf adult education center in Berlin 1959–61 [manuscripts in the Cologne Theater Studies Collection]

Exhibitions

  • Berlin theater since 1945. Stage design and performance , Berlin, Haus am Waldsee, September 17 to October 11, 1959, Berlin 1959
  • Heinz Ohff. Friedrich Praetorius. Stage sets . Berlin, Town Hall Fehrbelliner Platz, March 29 to April 20, 1963

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Kürschner's biographical theater manual: drama, opera, film, radio. Germany, Austria, Switzerland , Berlin 1956, Vol. 2, p. 566; Ohff.
  2. ↑ For the copies based on Schinkel's drafts for Undine see Rudolf Herd: “Notes.” Friedrich Praetorius obituary. In: Mitteilungen der ETA-Hoffmann-Gesellschaft , 9, Bamberg 1962, p. 64 and Elke Riemer, Karl Friedrich Schinkel's stage design for ETA Hoffmann's opera "Undine", in: Mitteilungen der ETA Hoffmann-Gesellschaft Bamberg , No. 17, 1971, p 28.
  3. ↑ Ohff.
  4. ↑ Mecklenburgische Monatshefte , Vol. 8, 1932, pp. 123 and 548.
  5. ^ Adelheid von Saldern, Staged Stolz: City Representations in Three German Societies (1935-1975) , Stuttgart 2005, pp. 266–267.
  6. ^ "A loss for the Berlin theater": Obituary in the Tagesspiegel , July 18, 1962, signed H. St.
  7. ↑ B Rep. 014 No. 2222 1947 - 1952 in the Berlin State Archives.
  8. ↑ Wolfgang Jacobsen and Hans Helmut Prinzler (eds.), Käutner , Berlin 1992, pp. 30–31; Klaus Völker, Hans Lietzau: Actor - Director - Intendant , Berlin 1999, p. 88. On a legal dispute against the Städtische Oper Berlin see. B Rep. 014 No. 2218 1952 - 1955 in the Berlin State Archives.
  9. ^ Friedrich Luft, Berlin Theater 1945-1961. Sixteen critical years , Velber near Hannover 1962, p. 161
  10. ↑ Günther Rühle, Theater in Deutschland 1945 - 1966. His events - his people , Frankfurt am Main 2014, p. 531. See also p. 451.
  11. ↑ Chris Hill describes attending a performance in Der stolen Elefant: A journey through time through war, flight, life in post-war Berlin , 2018.
personal data
SURNAME Praetorius, Friedrich
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Praetorius, Carl Friedrich Wilhelm (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German set designer, painter and graphic artist
DATE OF BIRTH December 14, 1902
PLACE OF BIRTH Chemnitz
DATE OF DEATH July 15, 1962
Place of death Berlin