Mellini theater

Postcard around 1897

Around 1900: Interior view with the ceiling painting by Ernst Pasqual Jordan

The Mellini-Theater in Hannover was at the turn of the 19th as one of the 20th century the leading variety theater in Germany.

history

The magician and artist Hermann Mehl (1843–1923) came to Hanover in the 1870s and performed there under the stage name “Mellini”. In 1889 he had a “specialty theater” built in what was then Artilleriestraße 10 in Hanover with 1667 seats. The structure was built according to plans by Theodor Hecht and H. Siepmann and opened on September 7, 1889. Its gable was decorated with symbolic representations of dance, song and acrobatics by Carl Dopmeyer . The painter Ernst Pasqual Jordan created the ceiling painting of the theater .

Entry ticket from the 1906/07 season

The house was initially used for artistic and ballet performances as well as variety events, cabaret and operettas. From 1897 “running pictures” or “living giant photographs” of Madame Olinka were shown, from which the tradition soon developed of showing cinema screenings at the end of the variety events. In 1900 the house was sold; Hermann Mehl remained artistic director.

In 1910 the theater was rebuilt, but above all a "complete interior renovation."

In 1930 the house passed into the possession of Anton Lölgen , who continued it as a pure operetta theater. At the beginning of the 1930s, the house is said to have been used by the Berlin theater directors Fritz and Alfred Rotter .

During the Third Reich , the theater was rebuilt by the Göttingen architect Diez Brandi and given a facade in the style of National Socialist architecture . The house was declared a power through joy theater.

In 1943 the building was badly damaged as a result of the air raids on Hanover . In 1946, young actors shoveled the cellar and opened the “Young Stage” under the direction of Jürgen von Alten with Fred Denger's play “We call you open”. In the same year von Alten and Hans Günther von Klöden used the cellar for the “Kammerspiele Hannover” and performed Bertolt Brecht's Threepenny Opera here, among others .

In 1954 the building was demolished.

Artist

Adolf Wohlauer was Kapellmeister at the Mellini Theater while he was still a student in 1913, Rudolf Senius was employed there from 1915 to 1918, Walter Jankuhn had some of his first engagements there. The operetta singer Emmi Wöbbeking , who works at the Mellini Theater, remained a lifelong friendship with him and his wife “Tutti” ( Karin , née Ahrens ) .

In the 1920s or 1930s Fritz Eckhardt was engaged at the Mellini Theater. Brigitte Mira and Hans Beirer worked at the Mellini Theater from 1939 to 1941 .

literature

• R. Lange: A short walk through Hanover's theater history , 1994 (Prinzstrasse. Issue 2), pp. 73, 76
• Klaus Mlynek , Waldemar R. Röhrbein : Hanover Chronicle . From the beginning to the present. Numbers data facts , Schlütersche , Hannover 1991, ISBN 3-87706-319-5 , online:
• Hugo Thielen : Flour, Hermann. In: Dirk Böttcher , Klaus Mlynek, Waldemar R. Röhrbein, Hugo Thielen: Hannoversches Biographisches Lexikon . From the beginning to the present. Schlütersche, Hannover 2002, ISBN 3-87706-706-9 , p. 248.
• ders .: Mellini Theater. In: Klaus Mlynek, Waldemar R. Röhrbein (eds.) U. a .: City Lexicon Hanover . From the beginning to the present. Schlütersche, Hannover 2009, ISBN 978-3-89993-662-9 , p. 437.

Web links

Commons : Mellini Theater  - collection of pictures, videos and audio files

• Mellini Theater on old postcards, collector's page (wwwpostkarten-archiv.de) by Andreas-Andrew Bornemann
• Mellini Theater on old postcards, collector's page by Andreas Praefcke
• The Mellini Affair in 1932

Individual evidence

1. ↑ ^{a b c d e} Hugo Thielen: Mellini Theater. In: Stadtlexikon Hannover (see section "Literature"), p. 437
2. ^ Hugo Thielen: Mehl, Hermann In: Hannoversches Biographisches Lexikon (see section "Literature"), p. 248
3. ↑ Artilleriestraße 10 later became Kurt-Schumacher-Straße 25/27.
4. ↑ http://www.andreas-praefcke.de/carthalia/germany/hannover_mellinitheater.htm
5. ↑ In many sources the first name of the second architect is only abbreviated with H.; here it is written out as Heinrich, with Hugo Thielen in the article Mehl, Hermann In: Hannoversches Biographisches Lexikon (see section "Literature"), p. 237, but as "Herm."
6. ↑ http://www.glass-portal.privat.t-online.de/hs/af/dopmeyer_carl.htm
7. ^ Klaus Mlynek : Jordan, (2) Ernst Pasqual. In: Hannoversches Biographisches Lexikon , p. 189; on-line:
8. ^ Klaus Mlynek: Art and Culture of the Weimar Years / The Cinema. In: History of the City of Hanover ... , p. 470f.
9. ↑ http://www.mzleipzig.de/hokus-art/aubererei/html-geschichte/mellini.htm
10. ↑ Dieter Brosius : 1910. In: Hannover Chronik (see section “Literature”), p. 148
11. ^ Peter Kamber: Fritz and Alfred Rotter. A life between theatrical splendor and death in exile . Henschel Verlag in EA Seemann Henschel, Leipzig 2020, p. 18.
12. ↑ ^{a b} Waldemar R. Röhrbein: 1939. In: Hannover Chronik (see literature), p. 183
13. ^ ^{A b} Hugo Thielen: Alten, (2) Jürgen Claus Eugen von. In: Hannoversches Biographisches Lexikon , p. 28; on-line:
14. ↑ Waldemar R. Röhrbein: 1946 , in Hannover Chronik (see literature), p. 209
15. ↑ http://www.lexm.uni-hamburg.de/object/lexm_lexmperson_00002499
16. ↑ Rudolf Senius at Operissimo  on the basis of the Great Singer Lexicon
17. ↑ http://www.rudolfjankuhn.de/index_walter.htm
18. ↑ oV : operettas Legend "Walter Jankuhn" / Berlin 20 / 30s / colleagues, friends, fans on the side walter.jankuhn.2fix.de , last downloaded 10 December 2016
19. ↑ http://www.oepb.at/menschen/fritz-eckhardt.html
20. ↑ Archived copy ( memento of the original dated December 8, 2015 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link has been inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. 
21. ↑ http://auffuehrungsdatenbank.bayreuther-festspiele.de/fsdb/haben/23/index.htm

Coordinates: 52 ° 22 ′ 35.3 "  N , 9 ° 44 ′ 4.1"  E