Court theater

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Court theater is theater that took place in the aristocratic courts or was subsidized by the court and was under its administration. Such court theaters existed until 1918, the end of the First World War . The court theaters were then transferred to public bodies and were transformed into "State Theater", "State Theater", "City Theater" or the like. renamed.

In the 18th and 19th centuries, the bourgeois folk theater , which was privately and publicly accessible, was seen as a contrast to the court theater . London and Paris preceded the other European cities. As a rule, however, the Volksbühnen also had to have a license from the court and were monitored by the censors .

history

The court theater emerged from the courtly festivals of the Renaissance . In the 17th century, the Italian opera and the tragedy of French classical music gave it a politically representative function. While the aristocrats themselves played theater at court festivals (like Louis XIV and later Marie Antoinette ), mainly dancing in disguise, there was an increasing professionalization and separation between stage and auditorium until around 1700. Outside France, this tradition lasted for a long time: Duke Carl Eugen played in Baroque theater performances in the Ludwigsburg Palace Theater after the middle of the 18th century .

There was often a stipulation that tragedy, serious opera ( opera seria , tragédie lyrique ) and historical or mythological ballet should be reserved for court theaters. The class clause created a gap between court theater and bourgeois theater, which was only completely overcome with the dissolution of the court theaters. For a long time, only comedies , antics , comic operas or pantomimes were allowed to be performed outside the court theater .

Since the end of the 18th century, attempts have been made to bridge or blur the boundaries between court theater and popular theater. The Austrian Emperor Joseph II called the Vienna Burgtheater for a time the National Theater . The concept of the "national" should dissolve the class boundaries (see, for example, Hamburger Nationaltheater , Nationaltheater Mannheim ). Nevertheless, there were mixed forms such as the Royal Court and National Theater in Munich .

The Weimar Court Theater , which Goethe worked at, which opened only after the French Revolution , later often served to demonstrate unity between the nobility and the bourgeoisie. Goethe's departure as a reaction to the Grand Duke's court theater airs on the occasion of the performance of The Dog of Aubry in 1817 showed the vulnerability of this conception, and in 1918 the conflict broke out openly (which in retrospect showed the failure of this intention). Some court theaters were passed to civil sponsors as early as the 19th century, such as the theater in Riga in the 1830s , which has since been called the city theater. Others were shut down, such as the Schwetzingen court theater . The Meininger Court Theater reached yet the late 19th century with its new "factory faithful" performances international fame.

Even in the 19th century, the court theater was often the only alternative to open-air spectacles and comedian booths in smaller towns . Often the traveling stages performed at the court theaters, which did not always have their own ensemble . For example, between 1828 and 1849 the Sigmaringen Princely House made the Sigmaringen court theater available to a theater entrepreneur free of charge. It is therefore not always possible to differentiate between the folk theater and the court theater in terms of content. In the 20th century, the diverse theater landscape of the German courts has become the globally unique (and costly) system of German-speaking city theaters.

The term intendant for a theater director comes from the court theater. He was a high court official and usually came from the nobility. For a long time, access to the court theater meant a social appreciation for the artistic staff as well as for the bourgeois audience, because it allowed them to take part in court activities without having the courtesy .

Court theater as a name

Long after the time of the actual court theater, several theaters in the 20th and 21st centuries gave themselves the name “court theater”, mostly as a play on words related to the location of these theaters in a former farm, an inner courtyard or a place called the courtyard. These theaters include the Waldviertler Hoftheater , the Dehnberger Hoftheater , the Hackesche Hoftheater , the Gostner Hoftheater , the Bergkirchen Hoftheater and the "Hoftheater" in Baienfurt (in the Hof district).

literature