Lessing Theater (Berlin)

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The Lessing Theater around 1900
The main actors of the Lessing Theater under the direction of Otto Brahm (1905–1912).

The Lessingtheater was a theater in Berlin-Mitte on Friedrich-Karl-Ufer 1, today's Kapelle-Ufer . The theater building , which opened in 1888 after a short construction period, existed until it was destroyed in an Allied air raid in April 1945. The ruins were torn down in the post-war years.

At the former location of the Krembser Circus, the theater director Oscar Blumenthal commissioned the building from October 1887 according to plans by the architects Hermann von der Hude and Julius Hennicke in the neo-renaissance style. The opening took place on September 11, 1888 with Gotthold Ephraim Lessing's play " Nathan the Wise ".

The new building, which cost around 900,000 marks , attracted a lot of attention at the time, as it was the first significant new theater building in Berlin since the Wallner Theater from 1864. In the intervening 24 years, old theaters and existing halls were only remodeled.

location

Location of the theater between Stadtbahn and Spree

The sloping, poorly cut property next to the tram viaduct and the fire walls of the neighboring houses presented the architects with a difficult task, as buildings of this importance required an effective appearance from a distance . The dome of the stage house conceals the firewalls of the neighboring properties and the main facade with the portico cleverly incorporates the intersection of the two streets as a "forecourt" and thus achieves an exemption so that the architecture can be appreciated (quotations from the Architecture Manual, Der Städtebau; Verlag Arnold Bergsträsser, Darmstadt 1890). The architects divided the triangular remaining areas facing the street with bars and gates and designed them as gardens. The remaining space at the rear of the theater was cleverly used as a farmyard.

The location was well chosen for business success. The completion of the nearby Reichstag led to the expectation of a further upgrading of the area and the horse tram that passed the theater made the theater easily accessible from more distant quarters.

The theater building

View of the theater in the opening year 1888 with horse-drawn tram and light rail

In the front building, the stairwells leading to the auditorium were combined with the associated anteroom and recreation rooms. Its importance as a theater was marked in the main facade by the portico , the double columns and the gable. The two open tower halls with the double arcades on all sides erected above the stairwells of the first rank were probably designed more for a long-distance effect, but also emphasized the representative character of the building. The middle part formed the auditorium and the rear part was determined by the dome-crowned stage building, which was surrounded by the ancillary buildings reduced by one storey. This arrangement was tried and tested in many theaters of the time and thus corresponded to a standard type of construction. As a “peculiarity” for the theater buildings of the time, as Die Gartenlaube emphasizes, the theater had no orchestra pit and was therefore dedicated exclusively to the “reciting drama”.

Access and relaxation areas

The spectators entered the theater through one of the three doors under the portico, which was provided with a protective roof for vehicles driving up. The entrance hall was 15.40 meters wide and 9.00 meters deep. The theater tickets were available at the day and evening box offices in the longitudinal axis of the hall. The entrances next to the cash registers led the guest to the second tier or to the entrances to the parquet floor and first tier on the long wall opposite the entrance doors.

After the performance, the visitors left the theater from the stalls through two separate doors on the long side of the theater or through the entrance hall. Special exits in the respective stairwells were provided for visitors to the 1st and 2nd rank, which made it possible to leave the theater without having to cross the entrance hall again. This separation of visitor flows allowed the house to be emptied quickly and was of commercial interest as it enabled the audience to switch between two performances more quickly.

The visitor cloakrooms were on the outside of the spectator stands. The corridors were primarily used as lounges during the breaks. A generous, 6.80 meter high, 9.45 meter wide and 15.60 meter deep foyer was available above the entrance hall for the more distinguished visitors of the stalls and the 1st tier . For the warmer seasons there was also a balcony above the portico and balconies in front of the side corridors of the first rank. For the visitors of the second tier, two beer bars were provided above the staircases of the first tier, which were connected to the open tower halls by spiral staircases and provided additional relaxation space in the warmer seasons.

The auditorium

Auditorium
Floor plans parquet and 2nd tier

At the request of the first director, Ernst von Possart , the basic shape and dimensions of the auditorium were adopted for good acoustics because of Schinkel's playhouse on Gendarmenmarkt . The hall was in the shape of an elongated semicircle with a radius of 18.46 meters. This was followed by a 5.00 meter deep proscenium , which narrowed from 13.90 to 11.50 meters. The auditorium had a maximum depth of 19.75 m, the corridors of the parquet flooring were 1.00 meters, the corridors of the 1st tier 4.70 meters and those of the 2nd tier 8.40 meters above street level. The ceiling of the hall was only 12.10 meters above the parquet corridor, the ceiling of the proscenium was only 7.50 meters. The theater offered a total of 1170 seats.

With the exception of the left side of the first tier, which was reserved for the court box, each tier was given two closed boxes on both sides of the proscenium.

In the parquet, 18 boxes with 116 seats were separated by low partition walls along the outer wall. 17 rows of seats accessible from the side offered 350 seats in addition to four rows with 58 second-class seats under the balcony of the first tier, which could be reached from a central aisle. The dimensions of the seats of 0.80 meters by 0.54 meters exceeded the seating in the Lindenoper at the time of the opening .

The first rank consisted mainly of boxes with a total of 140 seats. The five outermost on each side reached up to the parapet, in front of the ten inner boxes there were three rows of seats, so-called “balcony seats”, which offered a further 72 spectators. In the second tier, apart from the 28 seats in the proscenium boxes, there was only a row of seats with 316 seats that rose steeply to the " Olympus " at the back . The theater's 70 standing places were also in the second tier.

The hall, which was designed in neo-Rococo forms , was characterized by the main colors white and gold. The back wall surfaces were bronze tones and the curtains and upholstery were made of blue velvet .

Stage house and ancillary buildings

The stage and its ancillary rooms were accessed through the ramp at the rear of the building and the two stairwells at the rear of the side buildings. The side buildings contained the dressing rooms of the actors on the two lower floors. The dressing rooms for the choir and the extras were in the basement. The administration was on the third floor and the storage rooms for costumes and props were on the fourth . The space behind the stage served as a storage room for backdrops on the two lower floors , on the third floor as a storage room for furniture and on the fourth floor as a painter's room.

The stage was with 20.00 meters wide and 18.33 m depth sufficient for six scenes. The Schnürboden was 18.00 meters above the stage, the stage basement 5.00 meters below the stage. The 9.80 meter wide stage opening was closed by a two-part iron wall that was pushed apart from the center to the sides and not pulled up like the iron curtain .

Construction and facade

The construction consisted largely of brick masonry and iron , as maximum fire safety was to be achieved by excluding more flammable materials, especially wood - only the stage floor was made of wood. The execution of all stairs in stone and the roofing of the roofs and the 29.00 meter high dome of the stage building with sheet iron complemented the extensive fire protection measures . The flat roof over the adjoining rooms of the auditorium was made of wood cement . The lighting was provided by electric light.

The Lessing Theater was a plastered building, only the plastic decoration of the outer facade was made of sandstone . The architects von der Hude and Hennicke used Neo-Renaissance forms to design the facade . For the interior design, they chose the more dynamic forms of the late renaissance and for the auditorium the aforementioned Neo-Rococo - the building with its variety of styles is a typical representative of historicism .

Theater director

World premieres

The following pieces, among others, premiered in the Lessing Theater:

literature

  • H. vd Hude, J. Hennicke: The Lessing Theater in Berlin . In: Zeitschrift für Bauwesen , volume 39 (1889), columns 169–176, plates 21–26. Digitized in the holdings of the Central and State Library Berlin .
  • Joachim Wilcke: The Lessing Theater in Berlin under Oscar Blumenthal (1888–1898). An investigation with special consideration of contemporary theater criticism . Dissertation, FU Berlin, 1958 (printed by Ernst Reuter Society, Berlin)
  • Werner Buth: The Lessing Theater in Berlin under the direction of Otto Brahm (1904–1912). An investigation with special consideration of contemporary theater criticism . Dissertation, FU Berlin, 1965 (Printed by: Druckerei Schoen, Munich)
  • Harald Zielske : German theaters up to the Second World War. Typological-historical documentation of a building type . (= Writings of the Society for Theater History; Volume 65). Self-published by the Society for Theater History, Berlin 1971, pp. 175–178

Web links

Commons : Lessingtheater  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Two new Berlin theaters . In: The Gazebo . Issue 45, 1888, pp. 771 ( full text [ Wikisource ]).

Coordinates: 52 ° 31 ′ 21 ″  N , 13 ° 22 ′ 35 ″  E