Otto Brahm

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Otto Brahm, portrait photo by Nicola Perscheid (1912)
Eberhard Bachmann: Bust of Otto Brahm in front of the Deutsches Theater (1962)

Otto Brahm (born February 5, 1856 in Hamburg , † November 28, 1912 in Berlin ; actually Abrahamsohn , pseudonym : Otto Anders ) was a German critic , theater director and director .

Act

The main actors of the Lessing Theater under the direction of Otto Brahm (1904–1912).

Brahm, son of a Danish businessman from Jutland and a mother from Brandenburg an der Havel , was initially a theater critic and from 1889 editor-in-chief of the newly founded magazine Freie Bühne für modern Leben , which quickly became the mouthpiece of naturalism in Germany. The goals are expressed quite pathetically:

“The banner of the new art, written in gold letters by the leading spirits, is one word: truth; and it is truth, truth on every path of life, which we also strive for and demand ... Not the objective truth, which escapes the fighting, but the individual truth, which is freely drawn from the innermost conviction and freely expressed: the truth of the independent spirit. "

In 1889 Brahm also became president of the theater association Freie Bühne , which had just been newly founded in Berlin by theater critics and had committed itself to the performance of socially critical dramas by the naturalists . The first play was staged Ghosts of Ibsen , soon followed by the world premiere of Hauptmann's Before Sunrise . Brahm took over the management of the Deutsches Theater in 1894 and made Hauptmann his house poet. Max Reinhardt started in the ensemble of the Deutsches Theater in 1894 . During this time Brahm also supported Fritz Stavenhagen and directed the Lessing Theater in Berlin from 1904 to 1912 .

As a theater director, Brahm analyzed the text of a new play before each production in order to tailor the performance to its specific characteristics. The actors were instructed not to declaim - as was usual up to now - but to act realistically and psychologically understandable. With these innovations, Brahm made an important contribution to the establishment of the chamber play .

He died as a result of an operation on an intestinal ulcer on November 25, 1912 in Berlin.

Brahm had a relationship with Clara Jonas (1863-1922), the wife of his colleague in the Free Stage Association and legal advisor of the German Theater Paul Jonas . Both survived him. A bundle of around a thousand letters has been with the Berlin Academy of the Arts since 2008 .

Brahms monument stands in Berlin's Schumannstrasse.

Brahms younger brother was the theater actor Ludwig Brahm , his nephew the actor John Brahm .

Works

  • The German knight drama of the eighteenth century, studies of Joseph August von Törring, his predecessors and successors. Strasbourg: KJ Trübner, 1880.
  • Karl Stauffer-Bern. His life, his letters, his poems. Stuttgart 1892.
  • Critical Writings [in two volumes]. Ed. Paul Schlenther . Berlin: S. Fischer Verlag 1915.

Letters

  • Wilhelm Boelsche . Correspondence with authors of the Freie Bühne. Edited by Gerd-Hermann Susen. Berlin: Weidler Buchverlag 2010 (letters and comments), pp. 83–156
  • Otto Brahm / Gerhart Hauptmann : Correspondence 1888–1912 . First edition with materials. Edited by Peter Sprengel. Narr, Tübingen 1985, ISBN 3-87808-386-6 (German text library)
  • The correspondence between Arthur Schnitzler and Otto Brahm. Edited and introduced by Oskar Seidlin. Complete Place of issue: Tübingen. Published by Niemeyer, 1975.
    • Replaces the previous edition : Oskar Seidlin: The correspondence between Arthur Schnitzler and Otto Brahm . Berlin: Self-published by the Society for Theater History, 1953.
  • A previously unknown letter from Arthur Schnitzler to Otto Brahm . Edited by Reinhard Urbach . In: Modern Austrian Literature, Vol. 10 (1977) H. 3/4, Special Arthur Schnitzler Issue, pp. 19-21.

literature

  • Werner Buth: The Lessing Theater in Berlin under the direction of Otto Brahm (1904–1912). An investigation with special consideration of contemporary theater criticism . Berlin 1965 (dissertation).
  • Horst Claus: The Theater Director Otto Brahm . Ann Arbor (Michigan) 1981.
  • Hubert Kulick:  Brahm, Otto. In: New German Biography (NDB). Volume 2, Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 1955, ISBN 3-428-00183-4 , p. 507 f. ( Digitized version ).
  • Mirko Nottscheid: Brahm, Otto . In: Franklin Kopitzsch, Dirk Brietzke (Hrsg.): Hamburgische Biographie . tape 5 . Wallstein, Göttingen 2010, ISBN 978-3-8353-0640-0 , p. 62-63 .
  • Evamaria Westphal-Wolf: Max Halbe and the Berlin Theater. I. Siegmund Lautenburg and his contribution to the reception of “Youth”, II. Otto Brahm and his relationships with Max Halbe , in: Yearbook “Der Bär von Berlin”, ed. v. Association for the History of Berlin , 28th year, Berlin 1979.

Web links

Commons : Otto Brahm  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ message. September 22, 1904. Retrieved January 11, 2017 .
personal data
SURNAME Brahm, Otto
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Abrahamsohn, Otto (real name); Different, Otto
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German critic, theater director and director
DATE OF BIRTH February 5, 1856
PLACE OF BIRTH Hamburg
DATE OF DEATH November 28, 1912
Place of death Berlin