Comedy House Bad Liebenstein
The Comödienhaus Bad Liebenstein - from around 1870 to 2017 Kurtheater Bad Liebenstein - is the theater in the city of Bad Liebenstein, founded in 1800 . It already existed before the famous Meininger Theater in the then Duchy of Saxony-Meiningen .
history
Under the direction of Duke Georg I, it was built as a comedy house with adjoining bathrooms in the spring of 1800, and was opened on August 10 of the same year with a masked ball, which was accompanied by the Saxon-Meiningische ducal court orchestra . The first official season, which also included opera and drama performances, has been handed down from 1801, when the Wittersche Actor Society was a guest. In the course of the 19th and 20th centuries, gaming operations were stopped due to financial problems. After the founding of the GDR and until the Peaceful Revolution in 1989, the house was regularly played by the people of Meiningen , but also other appearances, e.g. B. by Herbert Roth took place here.
Today's entrance to the theater with the foyer was built in the early 1930s, when a coherent unit in the classical style was created with the new building of the bathhouse. The spa theater was originally even equipped with an orchestra pit , which at some point fell victim to the limited space available. The last major renovation of the theater took place in the 1970s.
At the end of the 1990s, the theater came to a complete standstill, with the exception of one or two events a year, the theater was completely unused. In April 2002 committed citizens of Liebenstein came together in a working group to prepare the 200th anniversary of the house, which was then assumed for 2004. Since then it has been used regularly again. The working group, chaired by Christian Storch, legally operated under the umbrella of the Förderverein Altenstein - Glücksbrunn e. V. , in order to be able to submit funding applications and conclude contracts with artists and theaters.
Lately the theater has been found to be a few years older (based on old bills, fixtures, and newspaper articles). A book about the beginnings of the theater was created and published at the end of 2014. Today, in addition to guest performances from various theaters and multi-disciplinary companies (e.g. State Opera Hanover , National Theater Weimar , Theater Plauen-Zwickau, Neue Bühne Senftenberg ), well-known solo artists are also engaged for guest performances, for example André Eisermann , Christian Quadflieg , Georg Schramm , Django Asül and Rolf Miller . Important points in the program are also cabaret events with guest performances and the like. a. the Leipziger Pfeffermühle or the Arche Erfurt as well as youth and puppet theater performances in November and December.
In 2006, large parts of the no longer needed and empty bathhouse were demolished. This eased the situation in the theater with regard to the cloakroom and toilets, which could now be accommodated in the left part of the building. This meant that the toilet entrance in the foyer was no longer needed and the old appearance with a bust, framed by two mirrors, was restored. Every year in the winter months, the foyer offers a Mediterranean flair: the large palm trees from Altenstein Castle Park overwinter in the spa theater.
With the 2018 program, the Förderverein Kurtheater is handing over operations to Bad Liebenstein GmbH.
architecture
The spa theater was built as a combined bath and theater house. Inside there was a larger hall, which in the early years was not only used as a theater, but also as a ballroom and dining room. Outside, the bath chambers were on two floors. The spa theater thus corresponded to a spa architecture inherited from the Baroque age, as it also appeared in Brückenau , Bocklet or Ems , but was replaced by separate building types since the late 18th century.
The architects of the Kurtheater were apparently Ferdinand Thierry , brother of the Meiningen court painter Wilhelm Thierry , and the Meiningen architect and building inspector Johannes Feer (also Fehr). This is remarkable in that Thierry was a student at Friedrich Weinbrenner in Karlsruhe at the time, who in turn worked as a spa architect a. a. went down in history in Baden-Baden . The stage should have been about as big back then as it is today, i.e. 12 × 10 × 4 m (W × D × H). According to the floor plan, there were four backdrop alleys on each side of the stage as well as an orchestra pit that was removed at an unspecified time, as was the ducal box.
The Kurtheater has 336 seats (+ 8 wheelchair spaces) in the stalls and in the tier. The foyer can accommodate around 100 people. Due to the renovation in the early 1930s, the entrance to the theater was moved to the left. Photos from around 1900 indicate, however, that even then the Kurtheater was no longer entered via the large entrance portals at the front, but through a right side entrance, which also housed a theater café - apparently after the previous bathing chambers had been converted.
Contemporary reports show that the exterior and interior architecture must have been classicist and simple. However, nothing is left of the original interior design and decoration today. It fell victim to the various alterations and renovations and is now as it was in the 1970s.
Current
Every year around twenty events take place in the Kurtheater, including the Federal Documentary Film Festival DOKU . The occupancy rate was 56% in 2004 and almost 60% in 2005. The development association KurTheater Bad Liebenstein eV , which has existed since 2007, has taken on the organization of guest performances and their marketing in cooperation with the Bad Liebenstein tourist information office, which also organizes the advance sale of tickets and the box office. Since 2010, the KurTheater Friends' Association has had its own website on which the current program can be viewed.
literature
- Christian Storch: From Comödienhaus to KurTheater , Böhlau Verlag , Cologne / Weimar 2014, ISBN 978-3-412-21101-1
Web links
Coordinates: 50 ° 48 ′ 50 ″ N , 10 ° 21 ′ 27 ″ E