Rouben Ter-Arutunian

Rouben Ter-Arutunian (* July 24, 1920 Tbilisi , Soviet Union , today Georgia ; † October 17, 1992 in Manhattan , New York City , United States ) was a costume designer and set designer who worked in the Third Reich , France and the USA with some Trips to film and television productions.

Live and act

Education and early years in Germany

The son of a lawyer grew up in Berlin and Paris and received his first artistic training in Hitler's Germany between 1939 and 1941 at the Reimann art school . Between 1941 and 1943, Rouben Ter-Arutunian took courses in art, literature, music, theater and philosophy at the Friedrich-Wilhelms-University and perfected his artistic knowledge in 1943 when he began studying music at the University of Music , which the Georgian-born in continued in the following semester 1943/44 at the University of Vienna .

Even during his studies in World War II , Ter-Arutunian was able to work as a set and costume designer at German-speaking venues. He made his debut at the Berlin State Opera in 1941 and designed the costumes for a production of Bedřich Smetana's The Bartered Bride at the Dresden Opera in 1943 . In the following year, Ter-Arutunian took part in the set design for Richard Strauss' opera Salome , which was performed at the Vienna State Opera on the occasion of the 80th birthday of its creator . After the end of the war, the set designer returned to occupied Germany and designed the decorations for shows in the American zone that were used to entertain American occupation soldiers. In 1947 Ter-Arutunian moved to Paris, where he also worked as an artist in the following years. At the Opéra-Comique , for example, in 1950 he designed both the sets and the costumes for a ballet concerto.

Theater and ballet work in the USA

Choreographer George Balanchine (right), with whom Ter-Arutunian often worked, here at a ballet rehearsal with the New York City Ballet, both employers, during a guest performance in Amsterdam

Resident in the United States since 1951, whose citizenship he accepted in 1957, Rouben Ter-Arutunian, who resides in Manhattan, designed the operas of Bluebeard's Castle, L'Heure Espagnole, La Cenerentola and Hansel and Gretel (all for the New York City Opera Company, 1952/53, where he worked several times with George Balanchine ) and for ballet souvenirs (CityCenter Theater, 1955) also an abundance of costumes such as sets for numerous Broadway theater productions, including initially the two Shakespeare productions Maß für Mass and The Shrewd Perforation (both early 1957). This was followed by backdrop and costume designs for a wealth of plays by other (especially modern) authors, such as The Duchess of Malfi , New Girl in Town, Maria Golovin, Redhead, Advise and Consent, Donnybrook !, A Passage to India, Arturo Ui (Brecht's The Unstoppable Rise of Arturo Ui ), The Deputy (Hochhuth's The Deputy ), The Devils, Exit the King (Ionesco's The King dies ), Goodtime Charley, The Lady From the Sea (Ibsen's The Woman from the Sea ), Days in the Trees (Duras' Whole Days in the Trees ) and finally Goodbye Fidel (April 1980), a veritable failure. Ter-Arutunian's works included comedies and dramas, musicals and epics. For his work on the musical Redhead , the artist received a Tony Award in 1959 .

Guest performances also took the American by choice to other US cities such as San Francisco, Los Angeles or Philadelphia, but also occasionally back to the country of his artistic beginnings: For example, Rouben Ter-Arutunian designed costumes and sets for the operas Orpheus and Euridike in 1963 in a performance at the Hamburg State Opera and in the same year at the Cologne Opera House, where he was artistically responsible for the ballet souvenirs . In 1965 the artist returned to Cologne to design the set for The Nutcracker. In 1968/69 Ter-Arutunian gave several guest appearances at the opera houses in Berlin and Vienna, where he designed several ballets in terms of scenes and costumes. Further German-language guest appearances by the artist took him again to Hamburg in 1971, to Vienna and Munich the following year and to Stuttgart in 1973. These were mostly ballet performances. In 1984 he largely ended his stage work.

Creative activity for television and film

For film and television productions, Rouben Ter-Arutunian was mainly active shortly after his arrival in the United States. He designed sets, costumes and grotesque masks for the television station CBS , later also for the competing station NBC and most recently again for CBS. Most of these were preparations from previous stage productions such as Antigone, Twelfth Night and Maria Golovin , but also a number of ballets by and with Balanchine. For Twelfth Night Rouben Ter-Arutunian received a Primetime Emmy in 1958 . TV specials in honor of Maurice Chevalier (1960) and Marlene Dietrich (1973) can also be found in his artistic oeuvre. Rouben Ter-Arutunian only made a detour to the cinema in 1964 with his contributions to the black-humored grotesque Death in Hollywood and in 1971 to the society satire So gute Freunde von Otto Preminger .

Filmography

As a production designer for television, unless otherwise stated

1951: The Bert Parks Show
1951: This Is Show Business
1952: The Toast of the Town
1954: The Abduction from the Seraglio
1955: Reunion in Vienna
1956: The Taming of the Shrew (also costumes)
1956: The Magic Flute
1956: Antigone
1957: Twelfth Night
1958: The Bell Telephone Hour
1958: Swing into Spring
1959: Maria Golovin
1959: Swing Into Spring!
1960: The Tempest
1960: A Musical Bouquet for Maurice Chevalier
1962: Noah and the Flood
1965: Death in Hollywood ( The Loved One ) (feature film, also costumes)
1971: So good friends ( Such Good Friends ) (movie)
1973: Marlene Dietrich: I Wish You Love
1993: The Nutcracker (feature film) (based on his drafts for George Balanchine's The Nutcracker )

Web links

personal data
SURNAME	Ter-Arutunian, Rouben
BRIEF DESCRIPTION	Georgian-Russian-American costume and set designer
DATE OF BIRTH	July 24, 1920
PLACE OF BIRTH	Tbilisi , Soviet Union , today Georgia
DATE OF DEATH	17th October 1992
Place of death	Manhattan , New York City , United States