Orpheum Darmstadt
The Orpheum Darmstadt was a variety show in Darmstadt .
history
In the northeast of Darmstadt between the Odenwaldbahn and today's Spessartring, Grand Duke Ludwig IV had a covered roller skating rink built for his wife Alice in 1877 . Friedrich Kranich, the local court spur master (a craftsman who made spurs, riding sticks, stirrups, grooming, etc.) built a skating rink 'outside' on the then undeveloped Hohlen Weg. F. Kranich was the father of the then machinery director Kranich at the Darmstädter Hoftheater , then at the Wagner Festspielhaus in Bayreuth and at the Dresden Hoftheater. When roller skating went out of fashion, the building served as a garrison equipment store for a long time.
In 1895 the rotunda was re-established by the Fink family as a vaudeville and show stage, equipped with 1200 seats and given the name 'Orpheum.'
Since then it has been owned by the Fink family. The Varieté Theater quickly became Darmstadt's most popular entertainment venue for artistry, cheerful and folk drama (operettas and Bavarian folk plays) and highly dramatic stage art. The Orpheum brought cosmopolitan flair to Darmstadt. It was used for many social events. Numerous artists, many world-famous, performed, including the Comedian Harmonists and later the Master Sextet, world-class jugglers such as Enrico Rastelli , who was a guest at the Orpheum in 1928, and Franzl Brunn, US jazz star Sam Wooding , as well as national greats such as Heinz Rühmann and Charlie Rivel ., The clown Grock and the pianist Elly Ney . The writer Joachim Ringelnatz mentions the Orpheum in a passage in The Bottle and when traveling with it . In recent years, many celebrities from the theater and film have joined them, such as the actor Willy Millowitsch .
The Orpheum could compete with houses like the Berlin Wintergarten or the Schumann Theater. In addition to operas, drama, magic and jazz, there were numerous animal numbers. Calculating elephants, trained lions and dancing monkeys made viewers laugh and amazed, including the grand ducal and Russian tsarist families.
Until 1928 it was equipped with rows of tables in front of the stage with small round tables, then it was given its fixed row seating.
During the First World War and in times of great unemployment in the late 1930s, the management of the Orpheum donated substantial contributions for the purposes of social welfare and gave free places to the war disabled, wounded and unemployed. The economic situation was tense for the house in the years that followed.
On October 1, 1940, the Nazi organization “Kraft durch Freude” took over the Orpheum and carried out changes and renovations in order to transform the house into a KdF site, as was done in other locations.
On the night of August 25th to 26th, 1944, the Orpheum was destroyed in an air raid. Only a rubble field remained of the mighty building with its golden columns and ornately decorated ceilings.
In 1948 another roller-skating rink was built in the immediate vicinity, and since 1977 there has been a sports hall used by several clubs, the Orpheum Sports Center . Today only this roller sports hall called Orpheum reminds of the traditional institution.
swell
- ^ Franzl Brunn ( Memento from December 22, 2014 in the Internet Archive )
- ↑ Christmas riddle local editorial office Darmstadt, point 4 of the tour information about the Orpheum ( Memento from January 11, 2015 in the web archive archive.today )
- ↑ Joachim Ringelnatz, The bottle and traveling with it