Osnabrück Theater

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Osnabrück's Theater am Domhof
Christmas market with music box in front of the Osnabrück theater

The Osnabrück Theater (originally Stadt-Theater ) is a five-branch theater in Osnabrück (Lower Saxony) operated by the Städtische Bühnen Osnabrück gGmbH .

The main venue is the Art Nouveau theater with 642 seats at the cathedral courtyard. There is also a studio theater in Weststadt (Osnabrück) , the emma-theater , with 96 seats. In addition to the musical theater, drama, dance and concert categories , the municipal theaters offer theater for children and young people with OSKAR - Young Theater City and District Osnabrück , which is supported by the OSKARs Freunde eV association.

The theater association has supported the stages ideally and materially since 1945. The aim of the founders, citizens of the city, was to preserve and promote the cultural life of the city of Osnabrück .

history

Theater has been performed in Osnabrück since 1771 in the Marstall wing of Osnabrück Castle . From 1780 two former noble houses in the street Große Gildewart were used as venues. Here also joined Albert Lortzing in 1827-1833. In 1832 the city took over the complex as the first municipal theater. Due to the lack of fire protection equipment , this theater was temporarily closed in 1881 and provided with an iron curtain . The desire for a new building grew.

On the southern side of the cathedral courtyard, the Ratsgymnasium , a high school for boys, had been located in the former Boeselagerchen curia since 1817 . The school cleared the building and moved to the Wall.

The original design for today's Art Nouveau building on the area of ​​the Boeselagerchen Kuria comes from the Dresden architect Martin Dülfer . His draft was not fully adopted for financial reasons. The construction manager for the theater was the Osnabrück building officer Friedrich Lehmann (1869–1961), who worked out the final plans. The building with sandstone cladding and plastered surfaces and a rounded front is decorated in many ways, for example with horns of plenty, medallions, stylized lotus blossoms and putti .

In 1905, Mayor Julius Rißmüller laid the foundation stone on the southern side of the cathedral courtyard. The shell was completed in autumn 1908. In 1909 the theater was completed, with many donations from the Osnabrück population. The stage curtain was a gift from the Osnabrück women and virgins . It rose for the first time on September 29, 1909, to the Shakespeare drama Julius Caesar .

In the first twenty years, the theater gained national prestige through premieres and world premieres. During the Nazi era , it worked closely with the regime. The literary scholar Rolf Düsterberg stated that the phenomenon of anticipatory obedience also applied to the Osnabrück theater.

During the Second World War , the theater building at Domhof was badly damaged by bombing on March 25, 1945, Palm Sunday. The foyer was retained; however, it was blackened with soot.

After the war, the British military authorities imposed a cultural ban. The ban on cultural activities was lifted in July 1945. It was linked to the condition that the theater, endowed with a capital stock, had to support itself. In September 1945 the Osnabrück Theater Association was founded with Chairman Allan Haarmann, and on October 4, 1945 the Theater GmbH was founded. The first director was Hanspeter Rieschel from Bielefeld. The British military authorities allowed him and the then city archivist and writer Ludwig Bäte to perform plays, operas and operettas and to organize concerts.

A makeshift stage with 150 seats was set up in the foyer of the theater. The first post-war premiere took place there on December 1, 1945. From February 1946 the hall of the Blumenhalle restaurant was used as an additional venue. It was rebuilt in the summer of 1946 and operated under the name "Neues Stadttheater". In the winter of the 1946/47 season, visitors had to bring a piece of wood, a briquette or a piece of peat so that the hall could be heated. In 1947/48 the company returned to the city of Osnabrück from Theater GmbH. In 1948, Heinrich Buchmann replaced Rieschel, the first post-war director, as director.

In May 1949 the city council decided to rebuild the Theater am Domhof; the employees of the New Theater in the flower hall were laid off. Some of them switched to the private Lortzingtheater, which only existed until 1950.

In 1950 a new theater GmbH was founded. In the rebuilt Theater am Domhof, Pedro Calderón de la Barca premiered on September 9, 1950 with “Love Above All Magic” . In the 1950/51 season the theater had a total of 220,000 visitors in 343 performances. In 1956 the shares in Theater GmbH were taken over by the city of Osnabrück.

Plastic Equal Weight - Balance by Joachim Bandau on the theater forecourt

The theater was rebuilt in two sections in the following decades. In 1971 a new foyer was added; the interior was also changed. Further structural changes in the style of the time began in 1985 and were completed in 1987.

In order to give the theater back its historical Art Nouveau gable for its centenary in 2009, the Art Nouveau Gable Association was founded. The construction costs were then estimated at 350,000 euros. The project could not yet be implemented.

In 1998, the sculpture Equal Weight - Balance by the artist Joachim Bandau , donated by the Herrenteichslaischaft , was set up on the forecourt of the theater . In 2011 the foyer was renovated.

On December 21, 2015 it was announced that the Osnabrück Municipal Theaters had been awarded the Federal Theater Prize . The prize, which is aimed primarily at small and medium-sized venues, was awarded by a jury appointed by Minister of State for Culture Monika Grütters and, in the case of the Osnabrück Theater, is endowed with 80,000 euros. The jury's justification for the award of the award states: “The Osnabrück Municipal Theaters succeed in an impressive way in creating a qualitatively remarkable and stringent program with all branches alike. Sustainable support for authors is just as important here as an ambitious musical theater that is open to seldom performed and contemporary operas. With large-scale research projects and a straightforward festival concept taken over from the previous management team, the theater is intensively networked in public space. The consistent maintenance of the ensemble work ensures that the house is firmly anchored throughout the city. "

Artistic director and management

Current management

  • Dominique Schnizer: Acting director
  • Mauro de Candia : Artistic Director of the Dance Company Theater Osnabrück

Ralf Waldschmidt has been head of the theater since the 2011/2012 season, before that he was opera director at the Augsburg Theater .

Directorships from 1945

literature

  • Dr. Erdmut Christian August, Thomas Schneider, Ingrid Gartmann, Ellen Goldigga, Städtische Bühnen Osnabrück GmbH (Eds.): Continue playing - Osnabrück theater work from 1945-1984 , self-published by Städtische Bühnen Osnabrück GmbH, Osnabrück 1984, 264 pages.
  • Stefan Hüpping: From the municipal theaters to the German National Theater Osnabrück , WiKu-Verlag, Duisburg 2006, 148 pages, ISBN 3-86553-177-6 .
  • Holger Schultze, Tobias Vogt (Eds.): Against everyday dust - Theater in Osnabrück: 100 Years Theater am Domhof , Verlag Theater der Zeit, Berlin 2015, 256 pages, ISBN 978-3-940737-50-2 .

Web links

Commons : Theater Osnabrück  - Collection of pictures, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ http://www.oskarsfreunde.de/
  2. ^ Günter Hindersmann: The Art Nouveau in Osnabrück . In: Heimat-Jahrbuch for the Osnabrücker Land, Meinders and Elstermann. Belm 2002, pp. 80-82, ISBN 3-88926-102-7 .
  3. ↑ http://www.klassik-heute.de/veranstaltungen/oper_2004_1_5.shtml
  4. ↑ http://www.osnabrueck.de/pressedienst/22558.asp?action=show_form
  5. ^ Carsten Steuwer: The revival of the theater after World War II . In: Heimat-Jahrbuch for the Osnabrücker Land, Meinders and Elstermann. Belm 2002, pp. 97-102, ISBN 3-88926-102-7 .
  6. ↑ Archived copy ( memento of the original from September 30, 2007 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / lkos.de
  7. ↑ https://www.noz.de/lokales/osnabrueck/artikel/461963/architektur-in-osnabruck-das-theaterfoyer#gallery&0&0&461963
  8. ↑ Press release of the Federal Government's Press and Information Office of December 21, 2015: Theater Prize - Minister of State for Culture Monika Grütters announces winners , archived copy ( memento of the original from January 15, 2016 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link has been inserted automatically and has not yet been checked . Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.iti-germany.de
  9. ↑ Archived copy ( memento of the original from December 25, 2015 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.iti-germany.de
  10. ↑ Dr. Erdmut Christian August, Thomas Schneider, Ingrid Gartmann, Ellen Goldigga, Städtische Bühnen Osnabrück GmbH (eds.): Continue playing - Osnabrück theater work from 1945-1984 , self-published by Städtische Bühnen Osnabrück GmbH, Osnabrück 1984, pages 233-263.
  11. ↑ https://www.ruhrnachrichten.de/nachrichten/theater-chef-hilchenbach- geht-in-den-ruhrstand- 9708.html
  12. ↑ https://www.noz.de/artikel/44146/norbert-hilchenbach-verlangert-um-drei-jahre
  13. ↑ https://www.osnabrueck.de/start/aktuelles/news/gesucht-und- discovered- ulrich-mokrusch-wird-intendant-der-staedtischen-buehnen /

Coordinates: 52 ° 16 ′ 36 ″  N , 8 ° 2 ′ 40 ″  E