Opera house on Hagenmarkt
The opera house on Hagenmarkt in Braunschweig existed from 1690 until its closure in 1861. After the opera house on Salvatorplatz in Munich and the Hamburg opera on Gänsemarkt, it was the third opera house in Germany open to the general public and was in its heyday during the 18th century of supraregional importance. Lessing's Emilia Galotti was premiered there in 1772 and Goethe's Faust I premiered there in 1829 .
history
From the town hall to the ducal opera house
The construction of the opera house on Braunschweig's Hagenmarkt was initiated by the art-loving Duke Anton Ulrich , who wrote and composed himself. For visitors to the fairs , which have been held twice a year in Braunschweig since 1681, operas have been performed in the limited ballroom of the old town hall since 1687 . Due to the great public interest, the Duke, who was financially limited, saw the construction of a large opera house as a potential source of income. Other reasons may have been the need for representation of an absolutist ruler and the inner-Welfish competition with the Hanoverian cousin Ernst August , who had the new opera house built in the Leineschloss in 1689 .
The medieval town hall of the Weichbildes Hagen was chosen as the new venue , which after the conquest of the city in 1671 by the Guelph Duke Rudolf August had become inoperable and was ultimately used for tobacco production. Anton Ulrich had part of the town hall demolished for 27,000 thalers and, together with the neighboring Gewandhaus, converted into a representative and technically modern theater with around 1000 seats between June 1689 and February 1690. The design by the master builder Johann Balthasar Lauterbach was carried out by the builder Hermann Korb .
First heyday until 1735
The new opera house was opened on February 4, 1690 with Johann Sigismund Kusser's opera Cleopatra , the text of which was written by court poet Friedrich Christian Bressand . The stage design was created by Johann Oswald Harms , who contributed to the national reputation of the Braunschweig Opera through the stage decorations he had made until 1698. The first court conductor JS Kusser was followed by Reinhard Keizer in 1694 , who in 1697, like Kusser before, also moved to the Hamburg Opera on Gänsemarkt. He was succeeded by the singer and composer Georg Caspar Schürmann , who trained in Venice from 1701 to 1702 with a ducal scholarship and was appointed court conductor in 1707 after a stay at the Meiningen court orchestra . In addition to well-known Italian operas, he increasingly performed German operas, of which he himself contributed around 30 works, but only three have survived in full. His best-known work is still the mummelong “Brunsewyk, du leiwe Stadt” from the opera “Heinrich der Vogler” , which premiered in 1718, with the text by Johann Ulrich von König . Schürmann had great skill in the engagement of outstanding musicians such as Johann Adolph Hasse and Carl Heinrich Graun . In Schürmann's time the court orchestra had 51 members, which was a lot for the conditions at the time.
The period from 1735 to 1818
During the first decades, only operas were performed on Hagenmarkt. The actress Friederike Caroline Neuber , sponsored by the reigning Duke Ludwig Rudolf , performed Gottsched's tragedy Dying Cato with her drama group in 1735 . Further plays were shown again in 1740 by the “ Schoenemannsche Gesellschaft ”.
The Italian theater entrepreneur Filippo Nicolini came to Braunschweig in 1749 with his ballet and pantomime group consisting of children . In contrast to Lessing , who noted the impression of “trained little monkeys”, the performances found the favor of the audience and Duke Charles I. This appointed Nicolini to “Directeur des spectacles”, with which he received the general director of the ducal theater. For its performances , a small comedy house was built on Burgplatz , on the site of today's Vieweg House . Ignazio Fiorillo , a member of Nicolini's theater company , became court conductor in 1751. In 1762 he went to Kassel as Kapellmeister .
With the relocation of the ducal residence from Wolfenbüttel to Braunschweig in 1753, the opera house gained in importance. Nicolini had it costly restored and the outdated theater machinery replaced. A travel note by the Scottish writer James Boswell from 1764 shows the high quality of the venue : Then I went to the opera, which is impressive. The Braunschweig Opera House is much more splendid than that in London . Excellent artists perform ... The Hereditary Prince Karl Wilhelm Ferdinand , who had been co-ruling since 1770 , however, decreed massive austerity measures to reduce the national debt, to which the disgraced Nicolini's position fell victim. Thereupon he left Braunschweig in 1771. The court orchestra was also dismissed. From 1762 to 1802, Johann Gottfried Schwanberger, who was born in Wolfenbüttel, was court conductor. The pupil Ignazio Fiorillos composed 12 Italian operas for the court theater.
World premiere of "Emilia Galotti"
Lessing's Emilia Galotti was premiered on March 13, 1772 under theater director Carl Theophil Doebbelin . Lessing could not take part in this performance, as he wrote to his fiancée Eva König on March 15, 1772: It was performed on the 13th of this (Emilia Galotti), the day before yesterday, as the birthday of the reigning Duchess ( Philippine Charlotte ) in Braunschweig. But I didn't go to the performance; for I have had such raging toothache for eight days that I did not dare to come over in the cold that had fallen. The rumor that Lessing had dealt with the relationship between Hereditary Prince Karl Wilhelm Ferdinand and his mistress Maria Antonia von Branconi in his play was not confirmed. The presumed scandal of the sold-out premiere did not materialize and nine repetitions followed.
Klingemann's National Theater from 1818 to 1826
After the comedy house on Burgplatz was demolished in 1799, guest traveling stages appeared in Braunschweig in the opera house on Hagenmarkt. Friedrich Walther's drama troupe also showed plays by the Braunschweig writer August Klingemann there from 1810 . Under him, the new “National Theater on Shares” was opened on May 29, 1818 with Schiller's bride from Messina , which existed under this name until March 19, 1826.
The composer Gottlob Wiedebein , who has been director of the ducal court orchestra since 1816 , performed Rossini's Barber of Seville in 1820 , Weber's Freischütz in 1822 and Beethoven's Fidelio for the first time in Braunschweig. Wiedebein was appointed court conductor in 1824 and retired in 1832 for health reasons.
Ducal court theater until 1861
As early as 1827, the National Theater, closed in 1826, was reopened as the “Ducal Court Theater ” with Klingemann as General Director (1827–1831). He created a theatrical version of Goethe's Faust I , which was premiered on January 19, 1829. The theater-loving young Duke Karl II , however, increasingly interfered in the program and even in the casting of the roles, so that Klingemann only had the right to propose. After Karl II had fled Braunschweig in September 1830 after an uprising by the citizens, Klingemann was effectively theater director again under the new Duke Wilhelm , but died in 1831.
In 1832 the composer Albert Methfessel became court conductor. He mainly promoted new opera performances, but had to give up his position in 1842 due to a hearing impairment. His successor was the violinist and composer Georg Müller , who was in office until 1852 . The French composer Hector Berlioz commented on the Müller brothers and the Braunschweig orchestral musicians after a visit to Braunschweig in 1843: I have to say at this point that, until this day, I have never been in France, nor in Belgium, nor I have seen outstanding artists gathered in Germany who would have been so devoted, attentive and enthusiastic about their task… . The last Hofkapellmeister in the old opera house, which has since suffered severe structural damage, was Franz Abt .
The last performance took place with Mozart's Magic Flute on September 1, 1861. On October 1st of the year the new venue was inaugurated on Steinweg , where the large house of the Braunschweig State Theater still exists today. The opera house on Hagenmarkt was demolished in 1864 and the former location was not rebuilt.
Building description
Exterior construction
After the demolition of the medieval Gothic arcades of the Hagen town hall , the south wing was provided with an annex to the west, which was carried out in cost - saving half-timbered construction, as was typical for the princely Salzdahlum Castle that was built at the same time . The main front of the two-and-a-half-storey building was formed by the south side, which was structured by a central projectile with a gable above. The structures on both sides of the central project had the same number of windows, but were of different widths due to the medieval structure, which meant that the overall view was asymmetrical. Under Duke August Wilhelm , a renovation was carried out by Hermann Korb in 1723. Further alterations took place between 1743 and 1745. The triangular gable of the central building was given a stucco relief in 1747/48 by the painter Joseph Gregor Winck . Renovations were carried out again under the court architect Peter Joseph Krahe . The formerly baroque south front has been redesigned in a classical style.
inside rooms
The main entrance on the west side led into a rectangular vestibule , from where one entered the auditorium with a bell-shaped floor plan. There were 20 boxes on the ground floor. The boxes in the first tier were accessible via two flights of stairs from the vestibule and separate entrances on the north and south sides. This gave the regent unseen access to his first tier ducal box, which was twice the height of the other, relatively low ones. In the northern risalit there was a staircase to the second to fifth tiers. In 1826 the auditorium was rebuilt, including redesigning the ducal box.
Stage space
The stage had a greater depth than the auditorium and was divided into the proscenium surrounded by a portal , the front stage, the middle and rear stages. The floor, rising towards the rear, created a perspective effect that Palladio used for the first time in the Teatro Olimpico in modern times . Extensive theater machinery, located on the Schnürboden and in the cellar vaults, made a variety of effects possible.
Redoutensaal
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Above the vestibule was the Redoutensaal , which is described by the Frankfurt councilor Zacharias Konrad von Uffenbach in his travel report in 1709 as follows: Some time ago, a building was built at the back of the opera house, which at the top was nothing but a large Redouten -Has a hall in which the gentlemen gather before the opera begins and after dinner also, if not downstairs on the ground floor, ballets and other merrymaking are held here. This room is quite a size, has a stove and fireplace, and in the middle hangs a very large chandelier with many arms: in the middle, however (according to the Braunschweig-Lüneburg coat of arms) is a large horse's head made of wood, in which a clockwork works, the face of which is on the forehead, and the eyes move constantly like the unrest in the clock. As part of the renovation work in 1723, the Redoutensaal was supplemented by a play and dining room and in 1737 by a stucco ceiling .
literature
- Ralf Eisinger: Staatstheater in: Braunschweiger Stadtlexikon, published on behalf of the city of Braunschweig by Luitgard Camerer, Manfred RW Garzmann and Wolf-Dieter Schuegraf with special assistance from Norman-Mathias Pingel, p. 215, Braunschweig 1992, ISBN 3-926701-14- 5
- Horst-Rüdiger Jarck , Gerhard Schildt (ed.): The Braunschweigische Landesgeschichte. A region looking back over the millennia . 2nd Edition. Appelhans Verlag, Braunschweig 2001, ISBN 3-930292-28-9 .
- Museum in Wolfenbüttel Castle and the Department of Building History of the TU Braunschweig (ed.): Hermann Korb and his time - Baroque building in the Principality of Braunschweig-Wolfenbüttel , Braunschweig 2006
- Richard Moderhack , Braunschweiger Stadtgeschichte , Braunschweig 1997
- Richard Moderhack, visitor in old Braunschweig , Braunschweig 2005
- City of Braunschweig (ed.): 300 years of theater in Braunschweig 1690–1990 . Publishers Joh. Heinr. Meyer, Braunschweig 1990
Web links
State Theater Braunschweig | Puppet Fadenschein | Comedy at the old town market | LOT theater | Low German Theater Braunschweig
Former theater in Braunschweig
Opera House on Hagenmarkt
Coordinates: 52 ° 16 ′ 2 ″ N , 10 ° 31 ′ 29 ″ E