Opera House Düsseldorf

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Düsseldorf Opera House in 1959
Düsseldorf Opera House today

The Düsseldorf Opera House is a venue and the administrative headquarters of the Deutsche Oper am Rhein . It is located at Heinrich-Heine-Allee 16a in Düsseldorf . The meeting place has a 22.5 × 14.75 meter stage and today offers space for 1342 people. Architecturally based on the Semperoper , the building was erected from 1873 to 1875 as the Düsseldorf City Theater . After being destroyed in air raids in 1943, the building was provisionally rebuilt during the Second World War. A fundamental renovation, which also removed the originally historic facade, was carried out from 1954 to 1956 according to plans by Paul Bonatz , Julius Schulte-Frohlinde and Ernst Huhn in the style of neo-classicism and monumental art of the 1930s and 1940s.

history

In 1746 the Old Theater was built on the Düsseldorf market square on the occasion of the first visit of Elector Karl Theodor . It was a half-timbered building that fell into disrepair in 1818 and had to be repaired in 1832. It received a classical portal . In 1877 the building had to be closed as a theater.

In 1864, 300 well-known citizens of the city of Düsseldorf had already approached Lord Mayor Ludwig Hammers with a petition in which they explained the importance of a new theater building. The planned location of the new theater building was the area of ​​the Botanical Garden, which was part of the Hofgarten , which was expanded at the beginning of the 19th century to include areas of the abandoned city fortifications . The royal government requested the site in 1865.

The construction of the Düsseldorf City Theater marks the beginning of the epoch in which the representative, metropolitan monumental buildings of Düsseldorf were built. First the city theater was built (1873), followed by the art academy (1875), the state house (1876), the art hall (1878), the arts and crafts school (1883) and the arts and crafts museum (1893).

The Stadttheater Düsseldorf was built from 1873 to 1875 at Heinrich-Heine-Allee 16, then Alleestraße, based on the model of the Dresden Semperoper , in the immediate vicinity of the art gallery and the arts and crafts museum as well as in connection with the development of the boulevard Alleestraße (today Heinrich-Heine -Allee, formerly Boulevard Napoléon). In 1891 a set and cloakroom was added. The stage on the courtyard garden side was extended. In 1906 the architect Hermann vom Endt rebuilt the interior and modernized and embellished the auditorium.

The auditorium was destroyed during the Second World War , but was provisionally rebuilt during the war by order of the Reichstheaterkammer . In 1946 the state parliament of the newly founded state of North Rhine-Westphalia was able to use the opera house as a meeting place. Its first session, the beginning of parliamentary life in the country, opened on October 2, 1946 under the musical direction of Düsseldorf General Music Director Heinrich Hollreiser to the sounds of the Coriolan overture by Ludwig van Beethoven.

A comprehensive renovation, to which the historicist façade of the original building was sacrificed, took place according to plans by Paul Bonatz , Julius Schulte-Frohlinde and Ernst Huhn from 1954 to 1956. The auditorium, which previously had space for around 800 visitors, was enlarged expanded by almost 1,400 seats. The cost of the project, which was initially calculated to be around DM 5.6 million, ended up being almost DM 10 million. This was due to the fact that the stage area, which had remained largely undamaged, had to be renovated due to increased fire protection requirements. The architecture of the renovation was criticized nationwide. The weekly magazine Time , the architecture critic construction with the just in the style of Modern resulting Cologne Opera compared, complained about an almost "reactionary seeming contrast" and "raspberry color" on the varnish of the auditorium, "fine deposed by greenish strips". The critics agreed that the acoustics were good. The opening, attended by four federal ministers, the entire state cabinet , the consular corps and other international guests, took place on April 22, 1956 with Beethoven's opera Fidelio .

In 2006 and 2007, the Düsseldorf Opera House was extensively renovated for 18 months. In particular, the stage technology was adapted to modern requirements. A total of around 31 million euros was built. The orchestra pit will also be widened during the 2011 free time. This eliminates the need for a complete row of chairs in the parquet. This means better working conditions for the musicians and the acoustics should also be improved.

description

Exterior architecture

West facade
Relief by Ferdinand Heseding , photo 2020

The theater building is in two parts and consists of the stage and the auditorium. The stage area remained undestroyed during the war and only had to be reshaped on the outside. The auditorium, which was damaged in the war, was rebuilt. Instead of the semi-cylindrical front in the style of the neo-renaissance, a strictly symmetrical, cubic facade was built. The middle part of the main front is projected like a risalit and clad with travertine. It rests on four rectangular pillars made of Fichtelgebirge granite . The facade of the middle part is structured by a grid system of blind windows. In the lower part of the facade there are low three-part window groups. Narrow, tall rectangular windows were created across the middle. These are completed by reliefs that symbolize the theater with the representation of Greek theater masks and a lyre. The facade reliefs were made by Ferdinand Heseding and are examples of sculpture in Düsseldorf in the 1950s.

Interior design

The main room of the building, the auditorium, shows the prototypical structure of a baroque theater hall with parquet , balconies and a peep-box stage , whereby the curved shapes and interiors typical of the time make features of the cinema architecture of the 1950s visible, which can be traced back to the participation of the cinema architect Ernst Huhn . The ticket hall and the cloakroom are located on the ground floor. Its low ceiling rests on round supports. The room shows a semicircular cloakroom system. There are curved staircases in the corners. These first lead to the foyer - which is lit through the low three-part window groups - then to the foyer of the tiers, which extends over three floors and receives daylight through the narrow, high-rectangular windows. The three window axes correspond to three large glass chandeliers made of Bohemian glass . Opposite the three windows are the curved balconies of the 2nd and 3rd tier. The wall surfaces show monumental paintings. The mythological scenes were created by Robert Pudlich and the rest by Professor Dallinger.

Art-historical classification

The facade is in the style of neo-classicism , the sculptures and paintings are from monumental art .

"The new construction of the auditorium [...] ties in with the traditionalist monumental architecture of the 30s and 40s [...] The paintings [...] and the facade reliefs [...] belong [...] to monumental painting and sculpture [...]"

- Jörg AE Heimeshoff

literature

  • Architects and Engineers Association of Düsseldorf (ed.): Düsseldorf and its buildings. L. Schwann, Düsseldorf 1904, p. 282
  • Ingeborg Schild : Theater . In: Eduard Trier, Willy Weyres (Ed.): Art of the 19th century in the Rhineland . tape 2 . Architecture: II, profane buildings a. Urban planning . Schwann, Düsseldorf 1980, ISBN 3-590-30252-6 , pp. 173-190 .
  • Jennifer Verhoeven: Opera In: Roland Kanz, Jürgen Wiener (Hrsg.): Architekturführer Düsseldorf. Dietrich Reimer, Berlin 2001, No. 22 on p. 17.
  • Jörg AE Heimeshoff: Listed houses in Düsseldorf, with garden and ground monuments. Nobel, Essen 2001, pp. 108-110.

Web links

Commons : Düsseldorf, Stadttheater and later opera house  - collection of pictures, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Johannes Jacobi: Geflickt Oper , article from April 26, 1956 in the portal zeit.de (Die Zeit), accessed on May 1, 2019
  2. ↑ Arne Lieb: Why Düsseldorf had to take devastating criticism for its opera house . Article in the portal rp-online.de (Rheinische Post) from May 1, 2019, accessed on May 1, 2019
  3. ↑ Christian Oscar Gazsi Laki: The opera - a monument and its history . In: Westdeutsche Zeitung . Edition of September 20, 2018, p. 18 (Düsseldorfer Nachrichten) , PDF
  4. ^ Jörg AE Heimeshoff : Listed houses in Düsseldorf, with garden and ground monuments. Nobel, Essen 2001, p. 110.

Coordinates: 51 ° 13 ′ 38.5 ″  N , 6 ° 46 ′ 38.2 ″  E