Gerhard Brunner (General Manager)

Gerhard Brunner, Vienna 2011

Gerhard Brunner (born March 23, 1939 in Villach ) is a former Austrian journalist , curator, artistic director and director of studies.

Life

Education and early years

Gerhard Brunner studied law at the University of Vienna , where he received his doctorate in 1961 . There he was chairman of the main committee of the university and deputy chairman of the central committee of the Austrian Students' Union (ÖH).

From 1964 Brunner worked as a freelance journalist. He was a correspondent and permanent contributor to numerous newspapers, magazines and radio stations, including Stuttgarter Zeitung , Die Welt , WDR , NDR , SFB , ORF . He was interested in the cultural institutions of Central Europe with a focus on opera , dance , musica viva and cultural politics .

Vienna

Ulrich Baumgartner's invitation to curate the Wiener Festwochen 1969 as a dance festival was followed in 1976 by the assignment at the Styrian Autumn Festival a . a. to create the focus on new dance with European premieres by Trisha Brown , Kei Takei and Laura Dean .

Egon Seefehlner , designated director of the Vienna State Opera , appointed him as ballet director in 1976.

Confirmed in office by the directors Lorin Maazel , Egon Seefehlner and Claus Helmut Drese , he worked until 1990, in the 1990/91 season together with Gerlinde Dill , towards realizing the concept of a Viennese dramaturgy . He succeeded in creating important choreographers , among them John Neumeier ( Josephs Legende ), Hans van Manen ( Grand Trio ), Rudi van Dantzig ( Ulysses ), Jiří Kylián ( Lullaby. The piece, commissioned by the Vienna State Opera, had a pre-performance at the Nederlands Dans Theater .) and William Forsythe ( Three Orchestral Pieces ) for world premieres and to work closely with Rudolf Nurejew ( Sleeping Beauty , Raymonda , Swan Lake , Don Quixote ). He gave the impetus for Nureyev to become an Austrian citizen in 1982.

The restoration of numerous dances by Grete Wiesenthal , Gertrud Bodenwieser , Gertrud Kraus and Rosalia Chladek can be understood as a commitment to Viennese traditions . In 1977 George Balanchine accepted his invitation to rehearse the European premiere of his love songs Waltz in Vienna; In 1987 the director Ruth Berghaus choreographed Henzes Orpheus .

With around 100 new works in more than 1000 performances, this was accompanied by a significant increase in productions and performances, the targeted promotion of young choreographers, the internationalization of the ensemble, which was exclusively Viennese until 1976, and numerous tours, primarily in the Mediterranean region. In 1983 the ensemble made a guest appearance at the Salzburg Festival , where Lorin Maazel conducted Daphnis and Chloë and Der Feuervogel (choreographies: John Neumeier), in 1984 in Korea, Japan and Thailand.

The support of the later City Councilor for Culture and Mayor Helmut Zilk enabled him to found the Vienna TANZ Biennale in 1982 , which he was responsible for until 1996 and which he helped shape in 1998. Around 130 ensembles reflected the world of dance in 450 performances, with the aesthetic range ranging from the historical horse ballet of the Spanish Riding School, the classical temple dances of India and the dances of other ethnic groups to forms of expression of academic and free dance. The main focus was on the developments in new dance and dance theater .

Representative guest performances by the Royal Danish Ballet, the Bolshoi Ballet, the Kirov Ballet, the American Ballet Theater, the Joffrey Ballet and the Paris Opéra Ballet were on the program, as were early appearances by the Twyla Tharp Dance Foundation, Paul Taylor Dance Company , Eiko & Koma, Bill T. Jones & Arnie Zane, Mark Morris Dance Company, Cloud Gate Dance Theater of Taiwan, the Wuppertal Ensemble by Pina Bausch and the Kibbutz Dance Company. Other highlights included Oscar Schlemmer's triadic ballet, reconstructed by Gerhard Bohner , and a return to the protagonists of modern dance and expressionism, including Doris Humphrey, Isadora Duncan , Ruth St. Denis and Rudolf von Laban .

Graz

In 1987 he was elected artistic director of the Graz theaters and confirmed twice in office. As the artistic director of three theaters , the playhouse built in 1824 , the opera house opened in 1899 and the youth theater Next Liberty founded in 1994, he made Graz into a renowned workshop of today's music theater. Together with Peter Nebel, his directorate partner, he developed the “Graz Model”. At the end of his directorship, Graz was voted “Opera House of the Year” by the critics of the magazine opernwelt . At the same time, for Verdi's Falstaff Peter Konwitschny became the director, Jörg Kossdorff the set designer and Jacek Strauch the singer of the year 2001. It is worth mentioning world premieres by Rami Be'er ( Naked City ), Ralph Lemon ( Don Juan ), Jörg Mannes ( Carmina burana ), Pavel Šmok ( Diary of a Missing Person ) and Richard Wherlock ( Transfigured Night ). Across all disciplines, Martin Kušej's Kill Pig Devil Finish Passion God was a work of dance theater.

In connection with the Styrian Autumn Festival , he cultivated contemporary modernism by premiering the new version of Roman Haubenstock-Ramatis Amerika (1992), Beat Furrer's Narcissus (1994), Mayako Kubos Rashomon (1996), Adriana Hölszky's The Rise of the Titanic (1998) and Gerd Kührs Tod und Teufel (1999) The opera Alfonso and Estrella (1991), which Franz Schubert personally submitted in Graz in 1827, can also be considered a belated premiere of the unedited original .

In 1995, on the part of Bühnen Graz, Brunner initiated the establishment of the Ring Award competition by the newly established Wagner Forum Graz under the leadership of President Heinz Weyringer . From 1997 to 2014 this competition for directing and stage design was held seven times. He was always a member of the main jury.

Berlin

Invited by the Berlin Senate Administration to develop a new form of organization for their ballet ensembles for the Deutsche Staatsoper , Deutsche Oper and Komische Oper , Gerhard Brunner designed the model of an artistically and financially autonomous, three-part, stylistically diverse “Berlin Ballet” from 1998 to 2002. The aim was to separate the ensembles from the three houses, to run them independently, to profile them differently in terms of style and to insert them as a fourth pillar in the later foundation of the Berlin opera houses. Using the example of the Berlin State Ballet, his concept has only been partially implemented.

Lecturer in Zurich and Vienna

At the suggestion of Alexander Pereira , in 2002 he accepted the invitation of the University of Zurich to design the Executive Master in Arts Administration (EMAA) training program and to lead it as founding director. The core of the study program was to bring artistic ideas and economic conditions to a common denominator. Between 2004 and 2014, around 140 participants completed a total of five courses. You have now held managerial positions in cultural and political institutions.

He was a lecturer at the Vienna Music Academy and the University of Vienna ; He has lectured at theater congresses and seminars in Russia (Yekaterinburg, Perm, Moscow), China (Shanghai) and Taiwan (Taipei). He was a juror at competitions in Nagoya, Beijing and Seoul.

Company compliance

With Susanne Herrnleben, he founded the artist agency Brunner Herrnleben Kunst- und Kulturproduktionen in 2001 . The agency works for directors such as Tatjana Gürbaca , Calixto Bieito , Peter Konwitschny , Dmitri Tcherniakov and offers advice on pursuing artistic claims under given economic conditions.

Others

From 2008 to 2012 he was a member of the board of directors at the Schauspielhaus Zurich as delegate of the canton of Zurich . The search committee of the Board of Directors of the Zurich Opera House involved him as an expert in 2009/2010 when appointing a new director.

Private

Gerhard Brunner had been married to the dancer Christl Zimmerl , who died in 1976, since 1965 . The marriage had two children, Simon Brunner (* 1968) and the director Fanny Brunner (* 1973). Today (as of 2019) he is married to Susanne Herrnleben.

Awards

• Honorary member of the Wagner Forum Graz
• Carrier of the Silver Panther of the Styrian Brass Band Association
• Gold Medal of Honor of the City of Graz 2001
• Great gold medal of the state of Styria.

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Stage dance - Dr. Gerhard Brunner
2. ^ Ilse Kubu: Ballet Direction under Gerhard Brunner at the Vienna State Opera from 1976–1991 , diploma thesis, University of Vienna 1991.
3. ↑ Andrea Amort: Gerhard Brunner , dancing in Austria , EMAA of the University of Zurich, 3/2011 [www.emaa.uzh.ch]
4. ^ Wiener Ballett-Dramaturgie , an attempt by Gerhard Brunner, in Ballett-Jahrbuch 1968, chronicle and balance sheet of the ballet year. Ed. Horst Koegler, Friedrich Verlag, Velber 1968. pp. 53–59
5. ^ Gerhard Brunner: Does ballet have a future in Vienna? , in the almanac of the Wiener Festwochen for the ballet festival 1969. Verlag Jugend & Volk, Vienna / Munich, pp. 8–11
6. ↑ Gerhard Brunner: How do you get dancers to dance? in Kronen Zeitung from December 6, 1970
7. ^ Gerhard Brunner: What our dancers should dance , in Kronen Zeitung of January 17, 1971.
8. ↑ Executive Master in Arts Administration. UZH (University of Zurich), 2018, accessed on July 8, 2018 . 
9. ↑ Own website [1]
10. ^ Barbara Boisits and Georg Demcisin: Brunner, Gerhard. Oesterreichisches Musiklexikon online, April 15, 2011, accessed on July 8, 2018 . 
11. ^ Barbara Boisits and Georg Demcisin: Brunner, Gerhard. Oesterreichisches Musiklexikon online, April 15, 2011, accessed on July 8, 2018 . 
12. ^ Barbara Boisits and Georg Demcisin: Brunner, Gerhard. Oesterreichisches Musiklexikon online, April 15, 2011, accessed on July 8, 2018 . 

Web links

• anonymous: Gerhard Brunner. AEIOU Österreichlexikon, February 2001, accessed on July 8, 2018 . 

Own website G. Brunner and S. Herrnleben [2]