Paul von Bongardt

Peter Paul von Bongardt (born May 14, 1871 in Cologne , † April 26, 1957 in Berlin ) was a German opera director and artistic director .

Life

origin

Paul von Bongardt came from a long-established Rhenish family. He was the son of the Cologne manufacturer Peter von Bongardt. The factory of the same name produced props for theaters .

career

After attending high school in Cologne, Bongardt went to the Cologne Conservatory to study music and completed the opera school in Cologne. As a playing bass or bass buffo he was at the Hoftheater Altenburg , Stadttheater Strasbourg , Hoftheater Karlsruhe and the Cologne Opera House .

In 1907 Bongardt took over the management of the city and share theater in St. Gallen . Under him the theater should experience a heyday. Particularly in maintaining the opera, he did a great job here. In the 1910/11 season, for example, he staged Salome , Der Rosenkavalier (1912/13) and Ariadne auf Naxos (1913/14). Furthermore, plays like Volpone or Danton .

With the outbreak of the First World War , Bongardt volunteered and fought as a private in the German Army . The Opera of the City Theater in Hamburg complaining Bongardt in 1916 and appointed him its top director. In January 1918, the Lübeck City Theater chose him as its third director .

As a friend of the opera, Bongardt first introduced the people of Lübeck to new works such as Das Höllisch Gold by Julius Bittner or Der Ring des Polykrates by Erich Wolfgang Korngold . The encounter with the modern, however, did not meet the taste of the Hanseatic people. With the play, the criticism of Stanilaus Fuchs 's entertainment program still on his desk, it was no different. Of its 21 premieres in the first season, only eight were from the cheerful genre . The audience only came when amusement was expected. Ida Boy-Ed tore up the schedule publicly. The first theater strike took place in 1920. Bongardt responded to the trend towards a smaller venue in 1921 with the opening of the first Kammerspiele in the building on the corner of Mengstrasse and Fünfhausen , as the stages of the city theater and the city hall proved to be unsuitable for this. After quitting his service - Georg Hartmann was his successor - he returned to the quieter St. Gallen.

There the theater blossomed again. In 1928, Bongardt gave the Swiss premiere of Erich Ebermayer's Kaspar Hauser . Since he committed in 1926 to take over the summer season at the Kurtheater Baden , all year round contracts could be offered to the entire staff of the St. Gallen Theater.

In 1928, Bongardt became the first director of the new Neustrelitz State Theater in Mecklenburg . He opened the theater on June 2, 1928 with Mozart's opera Così fan tutte .

In 1933, Bongardt took over the management of the Upper Silesian City Theater in Ratibor . His career as director ended in 1936.

After the Second World War , Bongardt headed the opera division at the Schöneberg- Friedenau City Theater in Berlin in 1945/46 , then founded a drama and opera school and taught at the University of Music .

Bongardt had married the actress Margarete, born Hoppe. The later actor, film director, film producer and writer Eugen von Bongardt emerged from the marriage.

literature

Marie-Louise Michel: Paul von Bongardt . In: Andreas Kotte (Ed.): Theater Lexikon der Schweiz . Volume 1, Chronos, Zurich 2005, ISBN 3-0340-0715-9 , p. 237 f.
Paul von Bongardt. In: Vaterstädtische Blätter , year 1917/18, No. 29, edition of September 29, 1918, p. 114.

Web links

Commons : Paul von Bongardt - Collection of images, videos and audio files

100 years city theater - the opera lover and in the Lübeck city newspaper from February 12, 2008
Paul von Bongardt - Theater Lexicon

Individual evidence

↑ Both works are forgotten today.
↑ Stanislaus Fuchs has been an actor since the opening of the theater and in 1911 became its second director. As a pioneer of German art, he left Lübeck to work in Riga as director of the city theater there.
^ Neustrelitz - Landestheater Mecklenburg , In: Historische Theaterbauten. A catalog. Part 2. Eastern federal states (= reports on research and practice in monument preservation in Germany ; 4). Verlag Bildung und Wissen, Bad Homburg 1994, ISBN 3-927879-55-X , p. 72 f.

↑ It is said that differences with the National Socialist regime were decisive for the end of his career.

personal data
SURNAME	Bongardt, Paul von
ALTERNATIVE NAMES	Bongardt, Peter Paul von (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION	German opera director and artistic director
DATE OF BIRTH	May 14, 1871
PLACE OF BIRTH	Cologne
DATE OF DEATH	April 26, 1957
Place of death	Berlin

[1] Both works are forgotten today.

[2] Stanislaus Fuchs has been an actor since the opening of the theater and in 1911 became its second director. As a pioneer of German art, he left Lübeck to work in Riga as director of the city theater there.

[3] Neustrelitz - Landestheater Mecklenburg , In: Historische Theaterbauten. A catalog. Part 2. Eastern federal states (= reports on research and practice in monument preservation in Germany ; 4). Verlag Bildung und Wissen, Bad Homburg 1994, ISBN 3-927879-55-X , p. 72 f.

[4] It is said that differences with the National Socialist regime were decisive for the end of his career.