Helmut Polze

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Helmut Polze, theater actor, opera singer, baritone in a passport photo from 1984

Helmut Polze (* 21st March 1933 in Altenburg , † 6. September 1997 in Leipzig ) was a German theater actor , opera singer of the vocal range baritone and member of the Komische Oper Berlin .

Life

Helmut Polze already worked as an extra at the Altenburg Theater during his school days . In Altenburg he completed an apprenticeship as a vulcanizer and began stage training at the German Theater Institute in Weimar- Belvedere in 1951, after which he made his debut in Chemnitz in 1952 as a notary Dr. Falcon in Die Fledermaus by Johann Strauss .

Initially primarily as an actor, he then moved to the Stadttheater von Meißen , to Güstrow and to the Thuringian State Theater Gera , where he joined Dieter Wien and Jürgen Hentsch in 1961 because of the joint protest against the Ochsenkopf campaign at the zealot of the Free German Youth (FDJ ) Antennas for receiving West-Television were removed without notice. Polze, who was the first to speak out against it in an ensemble meeting, was arrested by the State Security on October 27, 1961, interrogated and ordered to prove himself as a worker in production.

After working at the Nolde Vulcanization Institute in Altenburg and appearing as a freelance performer, Polze was signed to the Leipzig Opera House by director Karl Kayser for the 1962/63 season, despite the two-year "probation in production" imposed on him in Gera . Here he played in the Big House as well as in the Musical Comedy a . a. in The Beggar Student and in One Night in Venice . Already at the end of 1962, Helmut Polze celebrated his 2000th performance after a private count beginning in 1949. With My Fair Lady in the production by Wolfgang Weit, in which he played Professor Henry Higgins as Margot Ebert's stage partner in the role of Eliza Doolittle, another performance was added in 1967, which took place in rapid succession on the Leipzig Dreilindenstrasse The game plan stood.

After more than ten years in Leipzig, Walter Felsenstein , the founder and director of the Komische Oper , brought him to his ensemble in Berlin in 1974. Count Oscar, Minister of King Bobèche, in the blue beard by Jacques Offenbach in Felsenstein's production became the role of his life for Helmut Polze. This production was staged a total of 369 times in the Komische Oper and was on the program for almost 30 years. In this role, which Polze initially took on as a guest in 1964/65, he made guest appearances in Stockholm, Milan, Florence, Bologna, Vienna, Budapest, Prague, Copenhagen, Graz, London and Tokyo.

His important stage roles included u. a. the village policeman in the musical The Fiddler on the Roof and Chamberlain Ebelasztin in Háry János by Zoltán Kodály or the emcee in Kurt Weill's / Bertolt Brecht's Rise and Fall of the City of Mahagonny . At the same time, Polze continued to guest at the Leipzig City Theaters. He also took on roles on the speaking stage, appeared in the concert hall and worked as a lecturer at the "Felix Mendelssohn" University of Music in Leipzig.

Theater work as an actor and singer (selection)

Filmography

  • 1973: Ritter Blaubart by Jacques Offenbach, DEFA studio recording of the production of the Komische Oper Berlin from 1962, production: Walter Felsenstein
  • 1982: The Journey to the Moon by Jacques Offenbach, TV recording of the production of the Komische Oper Berlin from 1979, production: Jérôme Savary

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Large Singer Lexicon, Volume 4, Page 3724
  2. ↑ Erwin Leister: Ungeschminkt - Im gallop through the given time , Part II, page 76
  3. ↑ Erwin Leister: Ungeschminkt - Im gallop through the given time , Part II, page 220
personal data
SURNAME Polze, Helmut
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German opera singer and actor
DATE OF BIRTH March 21, 1933
PLACE OF BIRTH Altenburg ,
DATE OF DEATH September 6, 1997
Place of death Leipzig , Germany