Theater Basel

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Theater Basel, in the foreground the Tinguely fountain
Theater Basel, foyer, 2009

The Theater Basel is the municipal theater of the Swiss city ​​of Basel . It is a three-part house and offers opera , drama and ballet . From September to June, around 600 performances of over 40 new productions per season are shown on the three stages of the theater (large stage, small stage and theater). Around 400 people are employed in front of, on and behind the stages. Andreas Beck has been artistic director since the 2015/2016 season . From the 2019/2020 season he will be the new director of the Bayerisches Staatsschauspiel (Residenztheater). The 2019/2020 season at Theater Basel is planned by Andreas Beck and implemented by the department heads Pavel B. Jiracek (opera), Almut Wagner (drama) and Richard Wherlock (ballet). Benedikt von Peter will be the new director from the 2020/2021 season .

Structure and cooperation

orchestra

Since the Theater Basel does not have its own orchestra , the Basel Symphony Orchestra is usually used. The La Cetra Barockorchester Basel is engaged for baroque opera productions . Since the 2006/2007 season there has also been cooperation with the basel sinfonietta . For the opening of the 2007/2008 opera season, the Basel Chamber Orchestra was engaged for the first time (for a new production of Mozart's Abduction from the Seraglio ), followed by the Phoenix Basel ensemble ( Die Blume von Hawaii ) in the 2017/2018 season .

reception

Theater Basel was voted “ Opera House of the Year ” in 2009 and 2010 on behalf of Opernwelt magazine . In 2013, the Basel Theater Choir was named “Opera Choir of the Year”.

In 2016, in-house director Simon Stone received the Nestroy Theater Prize in the “Best Director” category for his adaptation of Ibsen’s John Gabriel Borkman (co-production Theater Basel / Wiener Festwochen / Burgtheater Vienna ) and was  named “Director of the Year” in the critics' survey by  Theater Heute and invited to the Berlin Theatertreffen 2016. For his staging of Tony Kushner's theater epic Engel in Amerika 2016 he received the Nestroy Theater Prize 2016 in the category “Best German-language performance”.

The Swiss premiere of the opera Thursday from Light by Karlheinz Stockhausen (musical director: Titus Engel , director: Lydia Steier ) was chosen as performance of the year by the magazine Opernwelt .

In the critics' survey of the magazine  Die deutsche Bühne for the 2016/2017 season balance sheet, Theater Basel was voted first in the “Best overall performance” category, and second in the same category in the following year.

In 2018, Theater Basel was voted first place in the critics' survey of the specialist journal Theater heute and thus “ Theater of the Year 2018”. Ewald Palmetshofer's overwriting of Gerhart Hauptmann's Before Sunrise , which was commissioned for Theater Basel and premiered in the 2017/2018 season at the Schauspielhaus, landed with two fewer votes than the “Play of the Year” ( Am Königsweg by Elfriede Jelinek ) in Critics ranked by the trade journal Theater heute in 2018 in second place. The co-production by Wiener Burgtheater and Theater Basel, Hotel Strindberg by Simon Stone, which premiered in January 2018 at the Vienna Akademietheater and will be performed on the main stage at Theater Basel from January 2019 , was voted 2nd in the “Production of the Year” category. To see in it u. a. “Actress of the Year” 2018 Caroline Peters, who was a regular guest at the Basel Theater in Simon Stone's production of “John Gabriel Borkman”.

Surname

Registered share for CHF 250 in the Stadt-Theater in Basel from May 1, 1874

The name Theater Basel has been used since 1988, historically it was called Stadttheater Basel and in the years 1968–1988 the institution, whose venues were the Stadttheater am Steinenberg and the Komödie in the Steinenvorstadt, was called the Basler Theater .

Building history

Theater fire in 1904
Theater Basel, facade to Steinentorstrasse, 2009

The Basel City Theater was founded in 1834. The first building came from the classicist architect Melchior Berri and had 1,300 seats. A considerable size for the city of Basel , which at that time had 26,000 inhabitants.

A four - tier neo-baroque building by Johann Jakob Stehlin was erected on the same site from 1873 to 1875 , which was destroyed by fire on October 7, 1904, but was subsequently rebuilt and reopened in 1909.

After the construction of the current building by the architects Schwarz & Gutmann , which opened in 1975, the old house was blown up. The construction cost the canton of Basel-Stadt 60 million francs. The characteristic irregular shape takes up the height of the neighboring buildings against Theaterstrasse. At the rear, the administration rooms and workshops rise on nine floors. The Basel Theater has a good 1000 seats in the large building, while the Small Stage in the same building offers 320 seats. It enables various forms of play, from the peep box stage to the simultaneous theater , and the foyer can also be used. The structure created a new sequence of rooms from Barfüsserplatz via Theaterplatz to Pyramidenplatz, under whose light domes the painter's hall is located underground.

The "Komödie" in the Steinenvorstadt, founded in 1950, had 600 seats until it closed in autumn 2001. It was replaced by the theater designed by the Basel architects Schwarz-Gutmann-Pfister, which was built in January 2002 in the vicinity of the theater on Steinentorstrasse and can hold up to 480 spectators.

The tree-lined square by the theater is adorned by a metal sculpture Intersection by Richard Serra and the carnival fountain by Jean Tinguely ("Tinguely Fountain").

Directors

Drama Directors

Opera directors

Ballet and dance theater directors

Theater Basel at the Berlin Theatertreffen

literature

Web links

Commons : Theater Basel  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Announcement from Theater Basel regarding the election as Opera House of the Year 2009. ( Memento of the original from January 26, 2010 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.theater-basel.ch
  2. Website of the Theater Basel (www.theater-basel.ch) Ensemble Chor  ( page can no longer be accessed , search in web archivesInfo: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.@1@ 2Template: Dead Link / www.theater-basel.ch  
  3. ↑ Season balance sheet 2016/2017
  4. Theater of the Year 2018 Basel wins critics survey. In: Berliner Zeitung of August 29, 2018, accessed on September 21, 2018.
  5. ^ NN: New City Theater Basel . Architects Schwarz & Gutmann BSA / SIA, Zurich. In: The work . tape 59 . Werk Verlag, Zurich 1972, p. 448–453 , doi : 10.5169 / seals-45890 .
  6. http://www.srf.ch/news/regional/basel-baselland/vor-40-jahren-sprengten-die-basler-ihr-theater
  7. Christa Zeller: Swiss architecture guide; Volume 2: Northwestern Switzerland, Jura, Central Plateau. Werk Verlag, Zurich 1996, ISBN 3-909145-12-4 . No. 040.
  8. ^ Felix Schwarz: City Theater Basel . Architects: Schwarz + Gutmann. In: The work . tape 62 . Werk Verlag, Zurich 1975, p. 707-716 , doi : 10.5169 / seals-47852 .
  9. "I am the queen bee": the designated theater director Andreas Beck in an interview . TagesWoche , October 17, 2013

Coordinates: 47 ° 33 ′ 10 "  N , 7 ° 35 ′ 24"  E ; CH1903:  611.4 thousand  /  266900