Fritz Randow (theater manager)

Fritz Randow (around 1940)

Fritz Randow (born January 22, 1891 in Berlin, † February 23, 1953 in Dresden ) was a German theater director , actor and director . He is the founder of today's Dresden State Operetta .

Life

prehistory

Fritz Randow, born in Berlin, became, after several intermediate stages, an independent theater entrepreneur and from 1930 headed the Küchlin Theater in Basel . Divorced from his Jewish wife, he married the actress Senta Liberty in 1937 and came to Dresden in the same year : From 1937 to 1939 he was co-director of the Central Theater , where he staged "grandiose revues" with his private guest performance director (quoted from Andreas Schwarze) in which his wife Senta also appeared. He was able to continue this private touring ensemble at a profit until autumn 1944 and at that time had a six-figure capital.

During the air raids on Dresden in February 1945, his Dresden apartment at Waisenhausstrasse 8 and his place of work, the Central Theater , were destroyed, he and his wife survived, but Fritz Randow was drafted into the Volkssturm.

Work in Dresden after 1945

Fritz Randow experienced the surrender in Bad Schandau . On the way back to Dresden in May 1945, he decided at short notice to lease two inns in order to build up his own operetta ensemble, namely the “Goldene Krone” in Kleinzschachwitz and the “Feenpalast” in Leuben . The former could be used immediately, the latter was initially in a non-playable condition, as the city of Dresden had housed a police barracks here from 1944. Nevertheless, he received a ten-year lease for the latter from the city of Dresden on July 1, 1945, and on August 16, 1945 the building permit for the renovation according to the design by the architects Bruno Just and Johannes Rascher for a theater with 900 seats, and began October 1, 1945 with the work.

At the same time, on July 20, 1945, he began using the "Golden Crown", which had to be stopped again in October 1945 due to a lack of heating material. Now the "Small Hall" of the "Feenpalast" was set up in a hurry. The "Apollo Artists Festival" began on December 25, 1945 and was used until 1947. Among the appearing there were u. a. Georg Wörtge , Paul Beckers and Maria Paudler on the small stage.

At the same time, the large hall was rebuilt and a larger stage and an orchestra pit installed. The stage equipment was Fritz Randow until mid-1946 illegally from the wreckage of the Central Theater in Waisenhausstraße get such. Some of these were transported from the city center to Leuben in handcarts and wheelbarrows. He was taking high risks because the material was not his property. But he could u. a. the support of Mayor Walter Weidauer , since he had meanwhile joined the KPD. In this way, he also escaped police persecution.

The topping-out ceremony was celebrated on October 30, 1946, but at the same time there were intentions in the state power to remove Fritz Randow as a private entrepreneur and to nationalize this theater as part of the Deutsche Volksbühne Dresden (DVB), which in July 1947 also went against Randow's will of the city management succeeded. He was only allowed to continue to work as “advisory”, but was able to keep his apartment in the front building.

On August 18, 1947, the opening hour was celebrated in the new "Apollo Theater", the first completed theater renovation in Saxony, at which he was allowed to make the greeting. In September he secured the existence of the operetta ensemble, which was hired too early, with a guest performance at the Eros circus . This was the last time his wife appeared on stage. Finally, on October 2, 1947, Franz Lehár's The Merry Widow was performed as the first operetta in the “Apollo Theater” .

Finale

Fritz Randow died broken and with a heart condition on February 23, 1953. An appreciation of his achievements for the reconstruction of the Dresden theater life after 1945 and especially that of the cheerful musical folk theater has not yet been given (status: May 2018).

Others

A family relationship to the entertainer Fritz Randow and his son of the same name Fritz Randow is not known.

literature

• 50 years of the Dresden State Operetta - 225 years of musical folk theater in Dresden . Edited by Peter Gunold. Läzer, Weimar 1997. pp. 79-83.
• Andreas Schwarze: Metropolis of Pleasure - Musical People's Theater in Dresden from 1844 to the present day SAXO'Phon, Dresden 2016. ISBN 978-3-943444-59-9 . Pp. 72 and 109-112.

Left

• Ralf Hübner: 70 years ago, the first curtain rose in the Apollo in sz-online.de on August 26, 2017.