Goethe Theater (Bad Lauchstädt)
The Goethe-Theater Bad Lauchstädt is a theater in Bad Lauchstädt and the only originally preserved theater building from the Goethe era .
Building history
There were theater buildings in Lauchstädt as early as 1776, when in 1791 Johann Wolfgang von Goethe became chief director of the Weimar court theater and had the Kurtheater Joseph Bellomos bought for 1200 thalers. From June 13, 1791, the Weimar Court Theater performed regularly during the summer season in Lauchstädt. Because of the unsatisfactory premises, it was finally decided to build a new theater.
The start of the new theater building was protracted due to bureaucratic hurdles (Lauchstädt was in Saxony ) and artistic differences of opinion. In addition to the court master builder Johann Friedrich Rudolf Steiner and the Berlin architect Heinrich Gentz , Goethe in particular influenced the building work through precise specifications for the interior decoration in the sense of his color theory , for the stage design and the transformation machinery. Goethe personally contributed about a sixth of the construction sum totaling over 9,000 thalers.
The theater building is of a simple design, whereby the function of the components can be read from the outside. Sandstone pillars installed in the middle of the 19th century obscure the character of the building considerably. The auditorium is also simple, but its proportions are selected. There are favorable visibility conditions and excellent acoustic conditions. The auditorium is vaulted by a canvas ceiling, which was interpreted as an "antique sun sail". The seating on the parquet is simple, the boxes are furnished with upholstered chairs. The lighting is still provided by Argand lamps . The theater has been electrified since 1908.
The theater in the 19th century
On June 26, 1802, the opening of the new house took place in Goethe's presence, attended by 672 guests, while hundreds of spectators could no longer gain entry. Goethe's prelude Was we bring and Mozart's opera Titus were performed . The Lauchstädter theater stage was one of the first in the German-speaking area in its time.
The dramas of Friedrich Schiller in particular were presented; in addition to spa guests, the audience included mainly students and academics from Halle an der Saale . In 1771 Frederick the Great had issued a theater ban for the university town of Halle, which had a positive effect on the popularity of the neighboring Lauchstädt in the Electoral Saxony region. When spa operations were restricted during the Napoleonic Wars and the Halle theater ban was finally lifted in 1811, the importance of theatrical productions was seriously impaired. In 1815 it was decided to cede a large part of the Kingdom of Saxony to Prussia. Lauchstädt with its spa facilities and theater was also one of the losses. In 1818 the Prussian treasury acquired the theater.
In 1823, paintings based on designs by Karl Friedrich Schinkel were installed in the so-called Great Salon, today's Historical Kursaal, which upgraded the rather simple, late-baroque interior to a spatial creation of German classicism. The performance of the Kurtheater continued until the neglected house had to be closed by the building authorities in the 1890s. In 1834 the young Richard Wagner made his debut in Bad Lauchstädt and conducted Mozart's Don Giovanni in the theater . On this occasion he met his future first wife, the actress Minna Planer .
Later development
At the beginning of the 20th century, the increasingly dilapidated venue was threatened with demolition. But thanks to the initiative of Halle's artistic director Max Richards and the banker Heinrich Lehmann, who also came from Halle, from 1906 to 1908 a comprehensive renovation with private funds took place. A theater association of its own was founded, and festivals and performances were held every year on special occasions. In 1912, Gerhart Hauptmann's drama Gabriel Schilling's Escape was premiered . The stage sets were designed by Max Liebermann , Tilla Durieux and Otto Fee could be seen in the leading roles.
For the Goethe year 1932, the spa facilities and the theater under the direction of the Swiss architect Hans Wittwer with the participation of the workshops of the city of Halle Burg Giebichenstein were also renewed in terms of equipment, the wall paintings by Charles Crodel on the proscenium wall of the auditorium and in the small course hall immediately afterwards destroyed when the NSDAP came to power in the summer of 1933.
After the Second World War, the range was initially expanded beyond dramatic art, with operas, operettas and musicals also being performed. Under the conceptual direction of the historian Willi Ehrlich (National Research and Memorials Weimar) and the architect Franz Ehrlich , a thorough restoration of the entire ensemble took place from 1966 to 1968. The buildings of the former spa (built by JW Chryselius from 1776 to 1780) were interpreted as a Goethe memorial in connection with the theater. The courtly origin and the former function of these buildings dating back to the Saxon ruling house in the style of the Dresden late baroque were only partially shown. The heavily neglected spa park, which was damaged by floods in 1965, was reconstructed in the style of a French garden according to Chryselius' plans, whereby the details were rather creative, the system was somewhat simplified and not always referred to sources and findings. The pond arbor, a classic monopteros with a copper roof, containing the bust of Christiane von Goethe was completely rebuilt. The western part of the approximately four hectare spa park with the restored "Herzog-Pavillon" JM Hoppenhaupt was largely preserved as an English landscape garden from the 19th century. The pavilion was set up as a museum as a gaming room and received the interior of the demolished Romschütz Castle near Altenburg in Thuringia. The theater, which was renovated sensitively and true to style, offered a repertoire of classical and pre-classical works of drama and opera and singspiel from 1968. The works of George Frideric Handel are given special consideration up to the present day .
The former spa theater in Bad Lauchstädt, known as the Goethe Theater since 1908, offers 456 seats in the stalls, the galleries and in the nine boxes and is a guest venue for various theaters and ensembles from May to October. The stage technology reconstructed in 1968 with six recesses and three decorations that change on the open stage is fully functional. In the music theater, the operas of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart form a program focus. For decades, highly acclaimed performances by international ensembles have been taking place in Bad Lauchstädt every year during the Halle Handel Festival in June. The drama program relates to the classical period and offers stage works by Goethe and Schiller, Lessing and Georg Büchner. In 2012, with the premiere of the opera Freischütz by Carl Maria von Weber in the staging of Christian Schuller and under the musical direction of Karl-Heinz Steffens, a widely acclaimed repertoire expansion of the historic house towards musical romanticism was undertaken.
The Goethe-Theater has been part of the non-profit historical spa facilities and Goethe-Theater Bad Lauchstädt GmbH , whose partner is the state of Saxony-Anhalt, since 1994 . In this way, the continuity of the theater as the Ducal Weimar and later the Royal Prussian court theater is preserved in the present. As part of the GmbH, the historical theater is presented both as a monument to theater architecture and, in the spirit of its founders, as a venue for operas, drama and concerts. René Schmidt is the managing director of the GmbH. Rita Berning is the chairman of the supervisory board. On September 19, 2012, the district council of the Saalekreis decided to allow the district to participate in Goethe-Theater GmbH from 2014. The “Friends of the Goethe-Theater” has around 100 members, including prominent artists and politicians; The chairperson is Elisabeth Baumbach.
The “Neue Schillerhaus” (opening on November 10, 2010) located in the immediate vicinity houses a collection on Bad Lauchstadt's theater history. The “Schiller Room” has also been installed there since 2010, a classicist interior that the Lauchstadt cabinetmaker Küchler made after 1805, shown in his home at Schillerstraße 5 and praised Schiller's and Charlotte von Lengefeld's “engagement place”.
literature
- Adolph Doebber : Lauchstädt and Weimar. A study of the history of theater building . Mittler, Berlin 1908.
- Norbert Eisold, Edeltraut Lausch: Du-Mont art travel guide . Saxony-Anhalt. Du-Mont Buchverlag, Cologne 1991, ISBN 3-7701-2590-8 , p. 386 .
Remarks
- ↑ Hans Junecke: The grotesque painting in Lauchstädter Kursaal. In: Goethe-Almanach for 1969. Berlin / Weimar 1968, p. 218 f.
Web links
Coordinates: 51 ° 23 '17.4 " N , 11 ° 51' 50.8" E