Ria Thiele

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Maria "Ria" Thiele (born March 18, 1904 in Kleve ; † April 20, 1996 in Düsseldorf ) was a German actress, dancer and choreographer .

biography

Youth, training and first roles

Ria Thiele was a daughter of the tax office auditor Otto Thiele and his wife Maria; the couple had six daughters and one son. Shortly after their birth, the von Kleve family moved to Düsseldorf-Oberkassel . Her father had dreamed of a career as an acrobatic clown in his youth . One day he and a friend ran away to a circus ; However, his parents had him brought home from Wroclaw by police force and he had to train as an auditor in the tax office. He later had his children do gymnastics at home and they played theater together. He enrolled his 15-year-old daughter Ria, who was obviously gifted as an actor, at the Theater Academy of the Schauspielhaus Düsseldorf , which was directed by Louise Dumont and Gustav Lindemann . Within 14 days, with the help of her siblings, she memorized three roles from classical pieces. When she auditioned Louise Dumont, she exclaimed enthusiastically: "My child, you seem to be under a lucky star."

In the same year Thiele had his first appearances, for example together with classmate Gustaf Gründgens on the stage of the garden restaurant Vossen Links in Oberkassel, which was known as a springboard for talent, but also in the theater as an elf in Shakespeare's Midsummer Night 's Dream . Other classmates who were known later included Paul Kemp and Walter Oehmichen . The following year, Ria Thiele, who was also talented in dancing, received her first contract at the Schauspielhaus Düsseldorf at the age of 16 , with a monthly salary of 500 marks in the first and 1,000 marks in the second year, which was high for the time. In addition, her school fees were waived. In those two years she took on roles in 26 plays.

Maria Thiele made her debut on June 8, 1920 as Wendla Bergmann in Wedekind's Spring Awakening . Because of her participation in the "scandalous play", the father locked her in her room and forbade her to perform further; the daughter threatened to jump out the window and the parents finally gave in. For this debut, the “lovely actress” earned rave reviews. However, since the tensions in the parents' house persisted, she finally moved on the advice of her teacher Louise Dumont to her friend, the painter Elisabeth Sohn-Rethel .

Further career as an actress

Ria Thiele with her colleague Wolf H. Kersten in Antonia von Melchior Lengyel at the Raimund Theater in Vienna (1925)

In 1922 the Düsseldorfer Schauspielhaus had to be closed due to financial difficulties. Ria Thiele then accepted, together with her colleague Eugen Dumont (not related to Louise Dumont), who was 27 years her senior, a four-year engagement at the Deutsches Volkstheater in Vienna . Ria Thiele's parents tried in vain to prevent this. In order to overcome the resistance of their parents, the couple got married.

During her time in Vienna, Thiele continued her dance training, for example in the school of the Hungarian dancer Rudolf von Laban . She was particularly successful in the role of Anitra in Ibsen's Peer Gynt , in which she also danced. The dance took up more and more space in her artistic work, and she organized her own dance evenings. After a performance in Bucharest , she was carried off the stage by the enthusiastic audience. In 1924 the Austrian weekly newspaper Die Bombe said that the “famous” Thiele danced with nothing but a “light ostrich feather belt” in the “overpowered” Schwank Jou-Jou . The critic Max Brod wrote: “For Ria Thiele, gymnastics and dance scenes are inserted. This well-trained body appears witty and never boring even without dialogue. ” Thiele replied to a survey by the Wiener Salonblatt magazine , which asked about artists' vacation plans:

“ The Viennese fee structure is not such that one could take a vacation. I give dance evenings in Zurich and in major health resorts to keep myself going. The pleureuses that I wear as a dance costume (see Jou-Jou ), I put on my hat during the trip. "

- Ria Thiele, Deutsches Volkstheater : Wiener Salonblatt , June 8, 1924, p. 9

In 1926 Eugen Dumont's contract with the Volkstheater was not extended, whereupon his wife also ended her contract. Subsequently, it was Thiele who financed the couple's life through her dance evenings, with Dumont apparently collecting and spending his wife's fees alone; Ria Thiele felt increasingly exploited. On New Year's Eve 1926, she had to be hospitalized with a ruptured appendix and was in mortal danger for eight weeks. After her recovery, she separated from Dumont and divorced. In retrospect, however, she expressed the opinion that without the help and protection of Dumont she would hardly have achieved her artistic advancement.

In the same year Ria Thiele appeared at the Theater des Westens in Berlin alongside Willy Fritsch and Willi Forst . In 1929 she accepted a six-month engagement in Prague, where she became a “celebrated darling of the Prague public”. The following year she married the Ulm entrepreneur Karl Levinger. Three years later she returned to the Düsseldorfer Schauspielhaus, which was again directed by Louise Dumont and Gustav Lindemann. Again and again there was tension with her husband, who asked her not to take on roles.

In Spain

At the time of National Socialism, Thiele moved with her husband, who was of Jewish origin, to Alcalá de Henares near Madrid in 1935 and ran a chicken farm there called La Complutense . It is said that this farm, which belonged to an SS man , was given to the couple in exchange for Levinger's company.

During the Spanish Civil War , the farm was seized by a Russian general, Levinger was captured and tortured. Ria Thiele fled to Marseille and from there to Vienna, where she was taken by the sculptor Fritz Wotruba . Their daughter Lydia was born there in 1937. Her husband was released after about five months and followed her. In 1938 the Gestapo looked for Levinger in the couple's Vienna apartment, but Levinger was able to escape to Milan . After a few months in which she was prevented from leaving, his wife was able to follow him, from there they went back to Spain via Paris and Italy.

Levinger was traumatized by the past experiences and his nature changed. He planned to emigrate to either Chile or the United States . He sold the farm without his wife's knowledge and the family moved to Madrid. When Ria Thiele opposed her husband's plans to emigrate, she was taken to an asylum - presumably at his instigation - as she reported in her memoirs. After four weeks she was able to break free; she was now penniless. With the support of friends, she was able to build a new life as a dance and gymnastics teacher in Spain. She was also hired as a choreographer by the Teatro María Guerrero . Karl Levinger committed suicide in 1946.

Thiele also built his own, successful dance troupe in Spain. After she had to give up dancing after a knee injury, she appeared again as an actress, but was under surveillance by the Spanish state, as she reported. As she struggled for reparation and wrote letters to high officials, she was sentenced to eight months in prison for insulting in 1951, but was later acquitted. Then she left Spain and went back to Germany.

Back in the hometown

The Ria-Thiele-Strasse in Düsseldorf

Ria Thiele moved back to Düsseldorf, but no longer accepted any role offers; She also turned down an offer from Gründgens, now director of the Düsseldorfer Schauspielhaus , to become a member of the ensemble. Instead, she fought for rehabilitation until 1962, when she began to write. In 1985 she became an extraordinary member of the Free German Association of Authors . In 1994 she published her book And I Wow Wings Out, in which she dealt with her traumatic experiences in Spain. Two years later she died.

In 2011 a street in the new Belsenpark district of Düsseldorf was named after Ria Thiele.

Works

  • Maria Thiele: And I grew wings. My fight against the machinery of the Franco justice system. Autobiographical document of the time . Ahasvera, Neuss 1994, ISBN 3-927720-02-X .

literature

  • Heide-Ines Willner: The delight of the city. Maria Thiele - From Düsseldorf-Oberkassel girl to theater star on European stages . Triltsch, Düsseldorf 1994, ISBN 3-7998-0065-4 .
  • Transport and improvement association for the left bank of the Rhine part of the city of Düsseldorf eV (Ed.): Our century. Chronicle of a peninsula. Düsseldorf-Left Rhine 1904-2004 . Grupello, Düsseldorf 2004, ISBN 3-89978-017-5 .

Web links

Commons : Ria Thiele  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ March 18, 2004 - 100 years ago: Maria Thiele was born in Kleve - on the European stage. In: www1.wdr.de. March 18, 2004, accessed June 23, 2017 .
  2. ↑ Willner: Das Entzücken der Stadt , p. 12.
  3. ↑ Willner: The delight of the city , p. 17.
  4. ↑ a b Our Century , p. 91.
  5. ↑ Willner: Das Entzücken der Stadt , p. 18.
  6. ↑ Willner: Das Entzücken der Stadt , p. 20.
  7. ↑ a b c Willner: The delight of the city , p. 24.
  8. ↑ Willner: Das Entzücken der Stadt , p. 38.
  9. ↑ Willner: Das Entzücken der Stadt , p. 39.
  10. ↑ The bomb. Illustrated weekly magazine. Vienna, June 1, 1924. p. 6
  11. ↑ Willner: Das Entzücken der Stadt , p. 51.
  12. ↑ Willner: Das Entzücken der Stadt , p. 33.
  13. ↑ Willner: Das Entzücken der Stadt , p. 46 f.
  14. ↑ Willner: Das Entzücken der Stadt , p. 53.
  15. ↑ Willner: Das Entzücken der Stadt , p. 56.
  16. ↑ Willner: Das Entzücken der Stadt , p. 58.
  17. ↑ Willner: Das Entzücken der Stadt , p. 60.
  18. ↑ Willner: Das Entzücken der Stadt , p. 56.
  19. ↑ Willner: Das Entzücken der Stadt , p. 66.
  20. ↑ Willner: Das Entzücken der Stadt , p. 66 f.
  21. ↑ Willner: Das Entzücken der Stadt , p. 73 f.
  22. ↑ Honor for two artists. Rheinische Post , October 3, 2011, accessed on May 8, 2017 .
personal data
SURNAME Thiele, Ria
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Thiele, Maria
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German actress, dancer and choreographer
DATE OF BIRTH March 18, 1904
PLACE OF BIRTH Kleve
DATE OF DEATH April 20, 1996
Place of death Dusseldorf