Bremerhaven City Theater

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The city theater in June 2002

The Stadttheater Bremerhaven is a three-part house founded in 1867 in the center of Bremerhaven with performances of operas , operettas , musicals , plays and dance theater . The venue, built in 1911, was completely destroyed in the heavy bomb attack on the night of September 18, 1944 . Remnants of the Art Nouveau facade were integrated into the theater building, which was newly built in 1952.

General

management
Artistic director: Ulrich Mokrusch
General Music Director: Marc Niemann
Administrative director: Heide von Hassel-Hüller
Members
Music theater singers ensemble: 7
Opera choir: Choir director Mario Orlando El Fakih Hernández and 22 members
Acting ensemble: 13 members
Ballet ensemble: ballet master and chief choreographer Sergei Vanaev and 9 members
Philharmonic Orchestra Bremerhaven: 56 members
Theater development association

The association for the promotion of theater and music life, founded in 1970 . V. has around 1,250 members, with an office in the Bremerhaven City Theater. He has made more than € 1,200,000 in funding available to the city theater since 1970. Its aim is to maintain the three-branch theater (opera / operetta, ballet, drama) as the cultural center of the Bremerhaven regional center.

history

City theater from 1867

Bremerhaven was founded in 1827 by Mayor Johann Smidt . Around 1837 the first theater performances took place in Bremerhaven by traveling actors and around 1840 the first theater performances in a shed with 200 seats in Fährstrasse an der Geeste under the direction of the theater restaurateur Cornelius. A few years later, the theater moved into a new building with 300 seats on the corner of Mittelstrasse and Leher Strasse (today the seat of the Städtische Sparkasse Bremerhaven). The theater in the Volksgarten saw its first opera performance on October 3, 1849 with The White Lady by François-Adrien Boieldieu . The United Theaters , which played in the Tivoli on Grazer Strasse , were founded around 1854 .

1867 is considered the year the Bremerhaven City Theater was founded as a multi-branch theater. In 1865, Cornelius applied for a permit for a new building. After the new building was completed and the municipal music director Heinrich Schweuert took over the stage and had it transported on rails to its new location in the Volks-Garten , the theater was opened in 1867 under the direction of Ferdinand Tischendorf. The auditorium could be connected to a newly built ballroom by sliding doors. Both rooms had around 2000 seats.

In 1872, Verdi's first opera was Il trovatore .

In 1880 the Volksgarten and Stadttheater came into the possession of Kuhlmann, Vaupel and Allers. Substantial, very sober conversions and expansions were carried out by 1881.

In 1885 the banker Ludwig Allers became the owner of the theater.

In 1903 the old theater had to be closed for fire safety reasons. The game took place in the ballroom in the Volksgarten until 1911. Offenbach's Hoffmann's stories were performed on a floating stage in the Volksgarten. In 1905 the city council provided the first funds for a three-section theater. On April 30, 1911, The Waltz King was the last performance at the Volksgarten.

New building 1909–1911

Frontal view of the theater with wing construction (1910–1915)

Planning and construction

In 1905 the city of Bremerhaven acquired the building site for the planned new theater building - the largest part of the site was the "Kanonenplatz", which the city acquired from the state for 25,000  marks . In addition, there were three privately owned neighboring properties. In 1908 the theater commission commissioned the Bremerhaven town planning officer Julius Hagedorn and the Berlin architect and theater specialist Heinrich Seeling to work out a preliminary design for the new building. The design was ready in spring 1909, but the commission did not approve: The estimated construction cost of 875,000 marks seemed too high, and another neighboring piece of land would have had to be purchased to realize it.

A limited competition for the new theater was therefore announced in July 1909 under the direction of Hagedorn . In addition to Hagedorn and Seeling - the two designers of the preliminary design - the jury also included the architects Emil Högg and Albert Hofmann . The city was represented by city director Erich Koch (later known as Erich Koch-Weser), the city council and architect Jäger and the head of the city council, Lehmkuhl. In 1909 the architect Oskar Kaufmann was 36 years old and by no means established. Even if the Hebbel Theater in Berlin (1907–1908) - the first theater designed by Kaufmann - caused a sensation with its novel design, it still had to earn its reputation. The architectural offices that dominated new theaters in Germany and Austria at that time included Fellner & Helmer (Vienna), jury member Heinrich Seeling (Berlin), Bernhard Sehring (Berlin), Max Littmann (Munich), Martin Dülfer (Dresden) and Carl Moritz (Cologne). Accordingly, Kaufmann was not included in the first list of architects invited to the competition: only Littmann, Dülfer and William Müller were invited to participate. Only after Littmann refused to participate was Kaufmann invited to succeed.

He already knew the artists who Kaufmann commissioned to design essential elements of the theater building from previous collaborations. The sculptures Hermann Feuerhahn and Georg Roch carried out the sculptural decoration of the facades and the interior . Feuerhahn had already carried out the building sculpture for the Hebbel Theater on Kaufmann's behalf. The painter August Unger carried out the ceiling paintings; he was a businessman who designed the Villa Holländer 1909-10 for the Berlin operetta composer Victor Hollaender . The woodwork such as side panels and stalls was carried out by Paul Redelsheimer .

architecture

Kaufmann also designed the rear facade to the port in a representative manner.

  • Keystones on the facade at the harbor - the temperaments

  • Profundity

  • anger

  • Happiness

  • equanimity

In use from 1911 to 1945

On October 1, 1911, the new theater was opened with Shakespeare's Midsummer Night 's Dream .

From 1911 to 1919, the actor, dramaturge and director Gustav Burchard , who worked in Bremen, was the leaseholder and director of the new city theater in Bremerhaven.

In 1919 the theater was taken over by the city. Burchard remained director of the theater from 1919 to 1931.

After the Second World War

On September 18, 1944, the theater was almost completely destroyed. Only the Art Nouveau facade by the architect Kaufmann remained. After the war, only a provisional theater could take place in the Bürgerhaus Lehe and Zuckmayer's folk play Katarina Knie was played as the first play from October 20, 1945 . In 1945 the first musical piece was Leo Falls, Der liebe Augustin . It was not until 1947 that the first opera followed with Mozart's The Marriage of Figaro . In 1952 the Bürgerhaus-Theater closed .

In 1950 it was decided to rebuild the Bremerhaven City Theater. The city financed the new building with the help of donations from the citizens. The new city theater was opened on April 12, 1952 with 747 seats at 3 million marks construction costs with Mozart's opera Don Giovanni ; followed by Schiller's Don Carlos and Beethoven's Ninth Symphony .

In 1964 the German premiere of Verdi's opera Attila took place under the musical direction of General Music Director (GMD) Hans Kindler, with Anita Salta as Odabella. The performance was considered a "Verdi miracle" by Bremerhaven, the critic of the Hamburg weekly newspaper Die Zeit "had come skeptical" and "went overwhelmed".

To mark the centenary of the theater in 1967, the magistrate appointed former director Karl Georg Saebisch an honorary member of the theater at a ceremony .

Renovations from 1997 to 2000

Floor plan and surroundings of the Bremerhaven City Theater today (2007)

At the end of the 1990s, the building had become increasingly dilapidated, and due to lack of money to maintain it, the city administration also considered closing it. With a donation campaign and a lot of public relations work, the city managed to renovate the house on Theodor-Heuss-Platz for 60 million DM. On December 25, 2000, the theater was reopened with the Verdi opera Attila in a new production by Peter Grisebach .

Use since 2000

Since it reopened on December 25, 2000, the city theater has had one of the most technically advanced stages in Europe. Productions from all branches of the company are performed here. Peter Grisebach has been the artistic director of the Bremerhaven City Theater since 1994. At the beginning of the 2010/2011 season, the position of artistic director was filled when Grisebach did not want to extend his contract beyond 2010. The new director is Ulrich Mokrusch, who until then was deputy director at the Mannheim National Theater .

The little house

After the Second World War, a small hall in an outbuilding in the Lehe community center was also used provisionally for chamber plays from 1945. In 1951 this second venue moved into the auditorium of the rebuilt Mayor Smidt School . The second venue stayed here until 1955.

After remodeling the rooms of the Kunsthalle in an outbuilding at the Great House, the Small House was opened on October 18, 1955 under the direction of Pudor with Stravinsky's The Story of the Soldier and Fry's A Phoenix from the Ashes . Modern pieces and old classics were part of the repertoire in the following years.

The children's and youth theater could use the small house with one or two plays per season. From 1955 to 2006, over 300 theater and youth productions took place at the Little House. Some successful pieces have been performed over two or even three seasons. Since the 2011/12 season, the Junge Theater Bremerhaven has been operating under the name JUB! his own venue at Columbusstrasse 2 on Elbinger Platz.

Since the 1972/73 season, the Low German stage “Waterkant” (NDB) has been represented at the Kleiner Haus with three to four productions per year. The Low German repertoire saw around 70 performances a year.

Since the 1980s, the Small House has increasingly taken on the function of a study stage. It offered the opportunity to act as a small theater forum. From the 1987/88 season onwards, Woody Allen's play Spiel's, Sam - as a homage to Humphrey Bogart - was seen over 400 times in ten years; a series of performances that is unique in Germany.

The small house with its 120 seats was extensively renovated in 2005/06 and received improved acoustics. On October 13, 2006, after a six-month break, the small house was reopened with Bernhard's Der Theatermacher . Solo programs, staged readings, musical programs should now be presented in addition to the small theater forms, especially from the more recent drama.

Low German stage "Waterkant"

The Low German stage "Waterkant" was founded on August 24, 1920. Blindsided with Freudenthal's one-act play De Inbräker led the then Platt Dütsche Vereen "Waterkant" on October 1, 1920 his first play on the Flett of Geest farmhouse in Speckenbüttel Park on. In 1933 the stage was named Niederdeutsche Bühne Waterkant .

After the Second World War, from 1947 the new domicile was in the Theodor Storm School . But there was also play in the Schollschule. Every season since 1967 there has been a production in the Small House of the City Theater, and in 1972 the stage moved entirely to the Small House.

200 pieces and 270 productions with around 4,200 performances took place from 1920 to 2010 with well over 500,000 visitors. Each season, three plays were staged for the Little House with professional directors. There were also 20 to 25 evenings at the Geest farm in Speckenbüttel.

Particular attention was paid to the world premiere of the one-act play De Bilanzbuer in 1960 and, on the occasion of Stavenhagen's 100th birthday, his farmer's comedy De dütsche Michel with more than 50 participants in the Great House of the City Theater and in 1990 the festival performance of Dat Dübelsbook by H. Behnken on the occasion of the stage day of the Niederdeutscher Bühnenbund Niedersachsen- Bremen .

Public transport

There was an additional track on Theaterplatz for the tram's theater carriages.

Today all public transport lines that go through the city center can be used free of charge by theater guests. This service is included in the price of the theater tickets.

Directors in the Stadttheater am Volksgarten

  • 1867 to 1875: Ferdinand Tischendorf (also for a few weeks in 1880)
  • 1875: Ernst Schreiber
  • 1876: from Soden-Götzdorf
  • 1877: Wilhelm Pieper
  • 1878: Viktor Müller
  • 1880: Albert Rosenthal
  • 1883: Uttner
  • 1884: I Hoffmann, Kiel
  • 1885: Albert Rosenthal
  • 1886: A. Rüdinger
  • 1888: Emil Huvart, Max Maxschulz, Hiller
  • 1889 to 1894: Hiller
  • 1892: Fritsche
  • 1894: Oscar Henneberg
  • 1895 to 1900: Johannes Fischer
  • 1900: Michels
  • 1902 to 1905: Franz Froneck; from 1903 also Ferdinand and Charles Moor
  • 1905: Kühne and Steinert
  • 1906: Grell
  • 1907 to 1909: winemaker

Artistic director / general director since 1911

  • 1911 to 1931: Gustav Burchard , also actor, writer, director
  • 1931 to 1933: Adolph Rampelmann
  • 1933 to 1935: Gustav Deharde
  • 1935 to 1937: Edwin Burmester
  • 1937 to 1945: Dr. Hans Press
  • 1945 to 1951: Karl Georg Saebisch , also director and actor
  • 1951 to 1961: Hans Herbert Pudor

Guest performances (selection)

literature

Theater history

  • Fritz Ernst: The Bremerhaven Theater - a contribution to its history from its beginnings to its rebuilding after World War II . Published by the Bremerhaven City Archives. Ditzen, Bremerhaven 1981.
  • Hanse. Happel: Let us close the theater - on the post-war history of the Bremerhaven City Theater 1945–1988 . Nordwestdeutscher Verlag, Bremerhaven 1993, ISBN 3-927857-50-5 .
  • Stadttheater Bremerhaven: 100 years of opera at the Stadttheater Bremerhaven - a documentary . Bremerhaven 1972.
  • Jürgen Dieter Waidelich: 100 years of the Bremerhaven City Theater - a commemorative publication , published by the Bremerhaven City Theater. Nordwestdeutscher Verlag, Bremerhaven 1967.
  • Manfred Ernst, Kai Kähler, Wolfgang Denker, Dirk Böttger, Anne Stürzer: One Hundred Years of the Bremerhaven City Theater. Ed .: Stadttheater Bremerhaven; NW-Verlag, Bremerhaven 2011, ISBN 978-3-86918-127-1 .

Magazines and series

  • Theater for everyone , Bremerhaven theater magazine.
  • Playtime . Nordwestdeutscher Verlag, Bremerhaven 1946–1999 ZDB -ID 1010132-9 .
  • Stadttheater Bremerhaven , Nordwestdeutscher Verlag, Bremerhaven ZDB -ID 2167563-6 .

Oskar Kaufmann and the new Art Nouveau building

  • Antje Hansen: Oskar Kaufmann - a theater architect between tradition and modernity . Gebr. Mann Verlag, Berlin 2001, ISBN 3-7861-2375-6 (dissertation at the FU Berlin ).
  • Oscar Bie: The architect Oskar Kaufmann . E. Pollak, Berlin-Charlottenburg 1928 (new edition with an afterword by Myra Warhaftig, published by Gebrüder Mann Verlag, Berlin 1996, ISBN 3-7861-1916-3 ).
  • Hans Schliepmann : Oskar Kaufmanns Stadttheater in Bremerhaven urn : nbn: de: kobv: 109-opus-5427 In: “Berliner Architekturwelt” Vol. 17 (1915) 2. pp. 45–84 ZDB -ID 536584-3 .
  • Harald Zielske : German theater buildings up to the Second World War - typological-historical documentation of a building type . Society for Theater History, Berlin 1971.

Reconstruction after the Second World War

  • Festschrift for the opening of the Bremerhaven City Theater at Easter 1952 . Ditzen, Bremerhaven 1952.
  • Volker Heigenmooser and Heiko Sandelmann: Bremerhaven - united for the theater. The renovation of the Bremerhaven City Theater 1997–2000 . Municipal real estate company Bremerhaven, Wirtschaftsverlag NW, Bremerhaven 2000, ISBN 3-89701-599-4 .

Web links

Commons : Stadttheater Bremerhaven  - Collection of pictures, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ City of Bremerhaven agrees contract extension with Artistic Director Ulrich Mokrusch until 2025 , nachtkritik.de, published and accessed January 16, 2019
  2. ^ A b Fritz Ernst: The Bremerhaven Theater . Ditzen, Bremerhaven 1981, p. 38.
  3. ^ A b Antje Hansen: Oskar Kaufmann. A theater architect between tradition and modernity. Gebr. Mann, Berlin 2001, pp. 27–28.
  4. ↑ a b c Hans Schliepmann: Oskar Kaufmann's city theater in Bremerhaven. In: Berliner Architekturwelt , 17th year 1914/1915, No. 2 (from May 1914), pp. 45–84. ZDB -ID 536584-3 urn : nbn: de: kobv: 109-opus-5427
  5. ^ Antje Hansen: Oskar Kaufmann. A theater architect between tradition and modernity . Gebr. Mann, Berlin 2001, pp. 222-229.
  6. ↑ Entry in the Berlin state monument list for Villa Holländer
  7. ^ Antje Hansen: Oskar Kaufmann. A theater architect between tradition and modernity . Gebr. Mann, Berlin 2001, pp. 230-233.
  8. ↑ Johannes Jacobi in Die Zeit (December 11, 1964, No. 50), p. 16.
  9. ↑ Miracle at the Waterkant . In: Der Spiegel , No. 50/2000 of December 11, 2000.
  10. ^ Grisebach new director of the Landestheater - Bild.de April 22, 2009
  11. ^ The new old intendant taz.de from December 26, 2013
  12. ^ The Young Theater on the Bremerhaven City Theater website. Retrieved December 11, 2018.
  13. ^ Paul Homann: Tram Bremerhaven // Track position on December 31, 1952. In: Tram Bremerhaven. Retrieved October 6, 2019 .
  14. ↑ Bremerhavenbus. Retrieved October 6, 2019 .
  15. ↑ Stadttheater Bremerhaven: Jubilee season 1961/62

Coordinates: 53 ° 32'26.6 "  N , 8 ° 34'52.7"  E