Heiner Bruns

Heiner Bruns (born August 12, 1935 in Düsseldorf ; † December 4, 2019 in Bielefeld ) was a German theater director , dramaturge and director .

Life, workstations

Heiner Bruns was born in Düsseldorf in 1935 and received his first formative theatrical impressions at the theater there under Gustaf Gründgens . After a long stay in the USA and studying German , art history , philosophy and sociology in Cologne , Munich and Zurich , he began his theater career in 1957 at the Ruhr Festival in Recklinghausen as assistant director to Karl-Heinz Stroux and Gustav Rudolf Sellner and at the Zurich Theater . In 1958 Sellner brought him to the Staatstheater Darmstadt as a dramaturge , from where he went to Arno Wüstenhöfer on the stages of the Hanseatic City of Lübeck in 1960 as chief dramaturge . Further stations were Freiburg (Intendant Hans-Reinhard Müller ) and Essen as Erich Schumacher's personal advisor . In 1971 he became director of the Pforzheim City Theater and in 1975 director of the stages of the city of Bielefeld . In 1986 the City of Essen elected him general manager of the Essen theaters. For various reasons, however, Bruns did not accept the election and remained artistic director in Bielefeld until his retirement in 1998.

Bielefeld 1975–1998: "Bielefelder Opernwunder"

Based on preliminary conceptual work (“Scheme for a Dramaturgy of the City Theater”) and consistent “ensemble work”, the stages in Bielefeld were consolidated in the first few seasons. The so-called "Bielefeld dramaturgy" was developed in music theater, the concrete result of which was the "Bielefeld opera miracle". With the young opera director John Dew , who was engaged by Bruns , the chief dramaturge Alexander Gruber, the set designer Gottfried Pilz and the general music directors Georg Schmöhe and Rainer Koch, the Bielefeld Opera gained international reputation during this time, above all through the consistent re-performance and world premieres of operas from the time of the Weimar Republic (Antheil, Brand, Delius, Dressel, Hindemith, Honegger, Korngold, Krenek, Martinů, Rathaus, Schreker, Stephan, Toch, Ullmann, Weill, Wellesz), works by the Grand Opera (Berlioz, Boito, Halévy , Meyerbeer) and contemporary world premieres as “Zeitoper heute” (Adams, Bernstein, Cotel, Dreyfus, Gerhard, Karetnikow, Loevendie, Medek, Moore, Musgrave, Villa-Lobos, Weir, Udo Zimmermann). The so-called “Zeitoper” was of particular interest, a genre that arose in the Weimar Republic and posed acute problems on the stage of music theater such as unemployment ( machinist Hopkins from Max Brand), press and media exposure ( news from the days of Paul Hindemith ), Pseudo-revolution ( The leap over the shadow by Ernst Krenek), state terror ( Der Schmied von Gent by Franz Schreker) etc. What was new about these works was that opera traditions with dance and light music, i.e. light and serious music, were closed mixed with a new sound. This modern republican new beginning had been banned by the National Socialists ("degenerate music") and was not taken up again in the Federal Republic. Works from the field of pre-classical and romantic opera (including Cherubinis Medea , Gretrys Zemire and Azor , Marschner's Vampyr , Schumann's Genoveva , Spohr's Faust ) completed the musical repertoire.

"The tiny Bielefeld Opera in northern Germany put Bielefeld on the world opera map" and made it a "Mecca" for those interested in opera for more than a decade.

play

Game schedules and pieces expressed the concept-specific relevant topics and offered the audience an entertaining opportunity to perceive their position and to determine their own perspective. Where the topicality of pieces that had become classic was hidden, it was made visible in new translations commissioned by the theater and a. Shakespeare by Erich Fried and Frank Günther, ancient tragedies by AS Kessler, Molière by A. Gruber and Tankred Dorst, Gorki by Thomas Brasch. There were also "excavations" such as Italo Svevos Alberta and Alice , Peter Martin Lampel's revolt in the house of education , Gerhart Hauptmann's Atriden , Leonora Carrington's Penelope , Lion Feuchtwanger's Peace ; World premieres such as Thomas Baum's Cold Hands , Rauhe Zeiten , Birthday , Georg Heyms Grifone , HH Jahnn's Hans Heinrich , Thomas Strittmatter's Imperial Waltz , Harald Müller's Last Supper ; German premieres a. a. Isidora Aguirres The good days, the bad days , Vladimir Gubarev 's Stalin's Datcha , Viktor Slavkin's smoking corner . A successful innovation in drama was the introduction of an emancipatory children's and youth theater, which was the fourth division for many years as the “branch of the Berlin Grips Theater in West Germany”. Important forms of youth culture were integrated here, such as rock music, critical songs, chansons and break-dance. In this way "happy visions of a more human world" were realized.

Saving measures ordered by the city of Bielefeld in 1981/82 and in 1994/95 of a further three million DM resulted in the “release” of 64 employees in almost all branches and in 1995 for the en-suite production of the theater on the old market. Because of this, the children's and youth theater had to be closed.

Ensemble maintenance

The actors who were temporarily part of the Bielefelder Musiktheater Ensemble during Heiner Bruns' directorship and who became a springboard for many of them include: a. Robert Dean Smith (Bayreuth Festival, Metropolitan Opera, Covent Garden), Susan Maclean (Bayreuth Festival, Munich State Opera), Gidon Saks (Bregenz Festival, Covent Garden, New York City Opera), Jörg Dürmüller (Royal Albert Hall, Carnegie Hall), Michael Vier (Lisbon Opera, Zurich Opera House, Hamburg State Opera), James O'Neal (†, Deutsche Staatsoper Berlin), Cynthia Makris (La Scala, Teatro Colon, Covent Garden), Margret Thompson (Los Angeles Opera, New York City Opera) or Christine Weidinger (Milan Scala, Metropolitan Opera, Covent Garden). In acting are u. a. Horst A. Fechner (†, TV), Norbert Lamla , Armin Rohde , Michou Friesz , Andreas Hoppe , Jacqueline Kornmüller , Joachim Meyerhoff or Tatja Seibt should be mentioned.

Some ensemble members later became successful directors themselves, such as Ulrich Burkhardt (†, Meiningen), John Dew (Dortmund, Darmstadt), Paul Esterházy (Aachen), Bernhard Helmich (Chemnitz, Bonn), Joachim Lux (Hamburg), Matthias Oldag (Altenburg / Gera), Kay Metzger (Detmold), Peter Theiler (Nuremberg, Semperoper Dresden).

Guest performances led the Bielefelder Oper in these years a. a. to the Schleswig-Holstein Music Festival , the Wiesbaden May Festival and the Houston Grand Opera.

voluntary work

Heiner Bruns was also committed to the cause of the German theater in the Deutsches Bühnenverein and in expert and search commissions. For many years he was deputy chairman and managing director of the artistic directors group, deputy chairman of the LV Mitte, member of the administrative board, the tariff committee and the committee for artistic issues of the stage association, as well as chairman of the theater advisory board of the Ministry of Culture in North Rhine-Westphalia. In 1989 he worked on the report "Management and control of the theater" of the municipal community center for administrative simplification (KGST) of the German Association of Cities. Among other things, he was a member of the administrative board of the pension fund of the German theaters, board member of the Deutsche Theatertechnische Gesellschaft (DTHG) for the stage association and an assessor at the stage arbitration tribunals. Numerous translations and productions.

honors and awards

• Honorary member of the Bielefelder Theater
• Honorary member of the Theater and Konzertfreunde Bielefeld
• Honorary member of the German Theater Technology Society (DTHG)
• Federal Cross of Merit on Ribbon of the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany , awarded by Minister Michael Vesper on behalf of Federal President Johannes Rau (2000)

literature

• Andreas Beaugrand (Ed.): "Stadtbuch Bielefeld" - Tradition and progress in the East Westphalian metropolis. Westfalen Verlag, Bielefeld 1996, ISBN 3-88918-093-0 .
• Martin Bodenstein: Mimes, painters and mimosas. Scenes of a city culture from three decades in the mirror of the newspaper. Westfalen-Verlag, 1996, ISBN 3-88918-092-2 .
• Manuel Brug: Opera directors today. Henschel Verlag, 2006, ISBN 3-89487-533-X , p. 71 ff.
• Heiner Bruns (Ed.): Degenerate Disregarded Forgetting - Bielefeld's Opera raises an objection 1980–1993. Westfalen Verlag, Bielefeld 1993, ISBN 3-88918-076-0 .
• Heiner Bruns (Ed.): 1975/76 - 1985/86 stages of the city of Bielefeld. (Editing U. Dopheide, A. Gruber, B. Kronsbein), Bielefeld 1987.
• Theaters of the City of Bielefeld (Ed.): 75 Years of the Bielefeld City Theater 1904–1979. Bielefeld 1979, p. 91 ff. (Editor Peter Schütze).
• Bühnen der Stadt Bielefeld (Ed.): Theater in Bielefeld 1975–1998 - The Intendanz Heiner Bruns. Kerber Verlag, Bielefeld 1998, ISBN 3-933040-03-5 .
• Günter Engelhard: Bielefeld model. Capital, October 1988.
• Kurt Griguscheit: Contributions to the history of the theater in and around Pforzheim. Pforzheim 1987, p. 162 ff.
• Alexander Gruber: "With eyes and ears", forays through the Bielefeld dramaturgy 1975–1998. Hermann Busch Verlag, Bielefeld 1997, ISBN 3-926882-09-3 .
• Alexander Gruber: The Chapel of Satan - New Contributions to Theatrical Thought. Pendragon, Bielefeld 2007, ISBN 978-3-86532-066-7 .
• Theater Bielefeld (Ed.): 100 Years of Theater Bielefeld. Kerber Verlag, 2004, (editor Andrea Görsch), ISBN 3-936646-79-1 .

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Former director of the Bielefeld Theater Heiner Bruns , theater-bielefeld.de December 5, 2019, accessed December 5, 2019
2. ↑ Mykenae Theater Correspondence. Volume 20, issues 28-35, Mykenae Verlag J.Bauer, Darmstadt 1970.
3. ↑ West German General. WAZ Essen, May 14, 1986.
4. ↑ Neue Ruhr Zeitung. NRZ newspaper for Essen, June 13, 1986.
5. ↑ Alexander Gruber: Scheme for a dramaturgy of the city theater. In: Alexander Gruber: The Chapel of Satan. New contributions to theatrical thought. Pendragon, Bielefeld 2007, p. 172 ff.
6. ^ Britta Michaela Scholz: Aspects of contemporary opera directing. Dissertation . Freie Universität Berlin, 1994, p. 13 ff. - Also: Roland Quitt: 1975 to 1998 I + II. In: 100 Years of Theater Bielefeld. Kerber Verlag, 2004, p. 52 ff.
7. ↑ Bielefelder Opernwunder on www.opern-freund.de ( Memento of the original from July 17, 2009 in the Internet Archive ) 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. (last accessed August 25, 2014) 
8. ↑ Nora Eckert: The director as a narrator. In: Theater of Time. Issue 10, 1990.
9. ^ Thomas Mense: Bielefeld wrote opera history. In: Bielefeld City Book. Westfalen Verlag, 1996, p. 412 ff. - Cf. Heiner Bruns (Ed.): Entartet Verdrügt Vergessen - Bielefeld's opera raises an objection 1980–1993. Westfalen Verlag, Bielefeld 1993, passim and stages of the city of Bielefeld (ed.): Theater in Bielefeld 1975–1998 - The artistic director Heiner Bruns. Kerber, Bielefeld 1998. Passim
10. ^ Page no longer available , search in web archives: christine-weidingerLufthansa's Germany 38, Issue 1/89 , p. 10 “A small but creatively powerful opera is putting the industrial city of Bielefeld on the international cultural map. (...) the Bielefeld opera is producing some of the best work to be seen in the Federal Republic today: "- Opera Now, London, January 1993, p. 44 ff .:" Treasure Trove. Bielefeld's exotic repertoire attracts opera lovers from far and near ”. - AVIS Best of Germany, Stuttgart 1991, p. 213, where the Bielefelder Opera ranks first among the recommended opera houses - manager magazin 11/1993, “Save yourself who can”, p. 315 ff. “In the category risk taking / innovation (...) the stages of the city of Bielefeld are by far ahead: a surprise for many - a matter of course for connoisseurs. The Bielefelder Theater (...) has been considered the German Mecca of modern music theater for years. ”- Cf. on the national and international criticism“ Theater in Bielefeld ”(note 8). For details of the performances, see “Theater in Bielefeld…” also opern-freund.de and / wiki / Bielefeld_opera (note 6). (See there also the discography of the complete recordings of Ernst Krenek 'The jump over the shadow', Louis Spohr 'Faust', Viktor Ullmann 'The fall of the Antichrist', Theo Loevendie 'Esmee')
11. ^ Letter from Volker Ludwig, Bielefeld City Archives
12. ↑ see Ursula Otten, Alexander Gruber: Happy visions of a human world - Bielefeld as a model for the integration of children's and youth theater into a three-branch theater. In: TheaterZeitschrift. III // IV, Berlin 1986.
13. ↑ Martin Bodenstein: Concept of the commune - shrink healthy: Theatertod on installments. In: Mimes, painters and mimosas. Westfalen Verlag, Bielefeld 1996, p. 67 ff.
14. ↑ Westfalen-Blatt. Bielefelder Zeitung, 7. + 17./18. August 1996.
15. ↑ Playtime booklets of the Bielefelder Theater 1975–1997, published by the Bühnen der Stadt Bielefeld, passim. “Deutsches Bühnenjahrbuch”, born 1976–2014, published by the Cooperative of German Theater Members (GDBA), Hamburg. - Eva Reichmann has compiled the careers of a number of actors. Reichmann, Eva, "Bielefeld - Province or World Theater?" In: Ravensberger Blätter, organ of the historical association for the Grafschaft Ravensberg e. V. First issue 2004, p. 36 ff. - See also: Franz R. Stuke: Künstlerkarieren: From Bielefeld to the world. In: 100 Years of Bielefeld Theater. (Note 5) p. 75 ff. Passim
16. ↑ 1988 "Peace and Peace", Kiel Opera House; 1991 “Die Jüdin” Wiesbaden State Theater; 1992 "Beauty And the Beast" (Zemire and Azor), Cullen Theater; Wortham Theater Center, Houston, Texas ;; 1992 "Zemire und Azor" Wiesbaden State Theater
17. ↑ New Westphalian. Bielefeld, No. 254, October 31, 2000.