City theater at Brausenwerth

Brausenwerther Platz with the imperial monument, city theater (center) and swimming pool (right), around 1895.

Brausenwerther Platz, aerial photo from 1928. The theater can be seen in the center of the picture.

The Stadttheater am Brausenwerth was a theater that existed from 1888 to 1943 on Brausenwerther Platz 2 in Elberfeld (from 1929 it belonged to Wuppertal ).

history

The Stadttheater am Brausenwerth was built between the Wupper and the Brausenwerth bathing establishment by 1888 . The construction costs were around 700,000 marks . The city of Elberfeld made the construction site available free of charge and approved a construction cost subsidy of 150,000 marks. The curtain and the picturesque decorations came from Fritz Roeber .

In the same year the venue was opened with an allegorical festival by the Elberfeld poet Friedrich Roeber . The music was created by Julius Buths , who also worked as a conductor and composer in the Wupper Valley . On the first day, in addition to Roeber's festival, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe's Iphigenie auf Tauris was performed, followed by Ludwig van Beethoven's Fidelio and on the third day Gotthold Ephraim Lessing's Minna von Barnhelm . The theater director Ernst Gettke was supported by an active theater association which, with the support of the city of Elberfeld, had created the conditions for the building of the house. The composer Franz Lehár received his first engagement under Gettke .

Under Richard Balder , director of the theater until 1898, the house experienced its first heyday. The performances of works by Richard Wagner ( Ring , Tristan , with Bayreuth guests and conductors such as Karl Panzner , Georg Richard Kruse and Rudolf Krzyzanowski ) caused a sensation. Balder's successor was Hans Gregor , who also took over the management of the Barmer Stadttheater. The first Mozart Festival took place in 1900 , and Hans Pfitzner's Die Rose vom Liebesgarten premiered here in 1901 . The composer Hans Knappertsbusch and the later actor at the Vienna Burgtheater Ewald Baiser , both from Elberfeld, began their careers here. Director Saladin Schmitt's engagement in 1906 only lasted for one season.

Other artists who had engagements at the Stadttheater am Brausenwerth were (selection):

• Clotilde Barth , stage actress, 1901
• Hans Basil , stage actor and opera singer, 1895
• Felix Baumbach , theater actor
• Elsa Bielitz , theater actress, 1997 (inaugural role "Hermione" in Winter's Tale )
• Fritz Birrenkoven , opera singer, from 1905 to 1913
• Ernst Bornstedt , stage actor, after 1888
• Maria Bossenberger , opera singer, from 1902 to 1903
• Jella Braun-Fernwald , opera and concert singer, from 1922 to 1924
• Jenny Broch , opera singer and stage actress, 1900
• Gaston Demme , theater actor, after 1888 ("Hermann" in Haubenlerche )
• Theodora von Fiedler-Wurzbach , theater actress, before or in 1869
• Jacques Goldberg , senior director, from 1918 to 1919
• Anny Konetzni , opera singer, before or in 1929
• Vana Kovic , stage actress, 1900
• Ida Krzyzanowski-Doxat , opera singer, 1890
• Ella Lachmann , opera singer, 1891
• Franz Mikorey , Kapellmeister, from 1900 to 1901
• Erich Ochs , Kapellmeister, from 1907 to 1908
• Walter Rieß , opera singer, from 1920 to 1921
• Max Ruhbeck , actor, after 1888
• Otto Sauter-Sarto , actor, after or in 1908
• Josef Turnau , hero tenor and director, 1918
• Julius Zarest , opera singer, around 1890

In 1917 the city of Elberfeld took over the theater business, on May 1, 1919 the two city theaters of Elberfeld and Barmen were merged. The theater was closed in 1939, in 1943 it and its surrounding buildings were destroyed in the air raid on Elberfeld , the ruins were removed and not rebuilt. In its place today the federal highway 7 crosses the valley of the Wupper.

Individual evidence

1. ↑ 1888–1943 The metropolitan square. ( Memento from December 29, 2015 in the Internet Archive ) In: wuppertal.de
2. ↑ L. Lassar: German stage almanac . 1889. p. 234.
3. ^ Klaus Goebel : History of the City of Wuppertal. Peter Hammer Verlag, Wuppertal 1977. ISBN 3-87294-108-9 , p. 73.
4. ↑ Uwe Eckardt: The Lord Mayors of Elberfeld from 1814 to 1929. ( Memento from January 14, 2017 in the Internet Archive ) p. 69.
5. ↑ Wolfgang Müller: Six decades of current affairs in the mirror of the local newspaper. General-Anzeiger der Stadt Wuppertal, 1887–1945. W. Girardet, Wuppertal 1959. p. 116.
6. ↑ ^{a b c d} Kurt Schnöring: Wuppertal in old views. Volume 2. Peter Hammer Verlag, Wuppertal 1981. ISBN 978-9-02885-479-6 . P. 26, 27.
7. ^ Norbert Linke: Franz Lehár. Rowohlt Taschenbuch, 2001. ISBN 3-499-50427-8 , p. 19.
8. ^ Karl Gustav Fellerer : Contributions to the music history of the city of Wuppertal. Volume 5, Staufen-Verlag, 1954. p. 19.
9. ^ Matthias Uecker: Between industrial province and big city hope: cultural policy in the Ruhr area of ​​the twenties. Springer-Verlag, 2013. ISBN 3-663-14520-4 , p. 71.
10. ^ Franz Irsigler, Günter Löffler: Historical Atlas of the Rhineland. Rheinland-Verlag, 2002. p. 50.
11. ^ Bergische Universität Wuppertal: First joint Wuppertal city theater - transfer. Retrieved June 28, 2020 . 

Coordinates: 51 ° 15 '23.2 "  N , 7 ° 9' 4.2"  E