Karl Theodor von Küstner

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Karl Theodor von Küstner, lithograph by Ignaz Fertig , 1840

Karl Theodor Küstner , 1837 from Küstner (* 26. November 1784 in Leipzig , † 28. October 1864 ibid) was royal Bavarian Privy Councilor and Court Theater - director .

Life

Grave of Karl Theodor von Küstner and relatives, Alter Johannisfriedhof Leipzig

Küstner studied at the Thomas School in Leipzig and studied law at the Universities of Leipzig and Göttingen and, after a long trip through Germany and France, took part in the 1814 campaign as a hussar officer for the Saxon volunteers. His predilection for the dramatic art led him to the theater, to which he devoted his entire activity as artistic director. At first (1817-28) he led the management of the Leipzig City Theater on his own account , which under his direction became one of the most important German theaters, and at the same time founded a pension institution for the members of the theater (cf. his "Review of the Leipzig City Theater" , Leipzig 1830). In 1819 he was admitted to the Leipzig Freemason Lodge Minerva to the three palms , to which he remained loyal until the end of his life.

Appointed director of the court theater in Darmstadt in 1830 , he resigned after a year when the court refused to support the institute and from 1833 headed the court theater in Munich , where he once again shone his business knowledge and his artistic sense proven. King Ludwig I , to whom he had dedicated his tragedy “The Two Brothers” (Darmstadt 1833), appointed him Privy Councilor . On February 11, 1837 Küstner was raised to the Bavarian nobility and on March 15, 1837 enrolled in the aristocratic class in the Kingdom of Bavaria.

After his appointment in 1842 as general manager of the Royal Theater in Berlin Küstner led here in the internal technical, economic and local conditions of the theater being the most successful reforms. Under his direction, the renewal of the Royal Opera Unter den Linden took place from 1842 . Even before the fire in the opera house on the night of August 18, 1843, the architects Carl Ferdinand Langhans , Leo von Klenze and August Stüler worked out renovation plans on his initiative , of which the design of the court building council Langhans was favored and implemented.

Küstner received the Grand Commander's Cross of the Order of Merit from Saint Michael in 1848 and took his leave in 1851 and since then has lived alternately in Berlin and Leipzig, where he died in 1864.

Services

The dramatic writer has Küstner in conjunction with Holbein by introducing the bonus (1845) to more secure Theater circumstances of the creation of the " Theater Association rendered outstanding" (1846).

His writings are of theater-historical value: Thirty-four years of my theater management (Leipzig 1853); Pocket and handbook for theater statistics (Leipzig 1855, 2nd edition 1857) and album of the royal theater and the royal opera in Berlin (Berlin 1858).

literature

Web links

Commons : Karl Theodor von Küstner  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Court and State Manual of the Kingdom of Bavaria 1863, p. 72.
personal data
SURNAME Küstner, Karl Theodor von
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Küstner, Carl Theodor
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German theater director
DATE OF BIRTH November 26, 1784
PLACE OF BIRTH Leipzig
DATE OF DEATH October 28, 1864
Place of death Leipzig