Theater Erfurt

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The Theater Erfurt is a publicly sponsored theater of the Thuringian capital Erfurt . The main venue is the new building completed in September 2003 in the Brühlervorstadt district , located between the Domberg and the baroque fortress of the Petersberg .

The theater's program focuses on a wide range of musical theater and concerts on the large stage with 800 seats and the studio stage with 200 seats. It is played by the Erfurt Philharmonic Orchestra , which belongs to the theater . Dance and drama guest performances are also offered. The Erfurt Theater is also the organizer of the annual DomStufen Festival .

history

The theater in Erfurt at the time of the monarchy

Erfurt, in front of the theater.jpg

Since 1756, Erfurt made its ballroom and its garden pavilion - today's Kaisersaal in the Futterstraße - available as a venue for traveling drama troops. Since Erfurt, unlike Weimar and Gotha, was not a residential city, there was no institution that could have supported a permanent theater. Despite its size and importance, the city remained dependent on traveling stages and guest performances by the Weimar court theater until the end of the 19th century . On the occasion of the Prince's Congress in 1808 , however, Napoleon's court actors from the Comédie Française came to Erfurt and played in front of the crowned heads of Europe. Famous actor François-Joseph Talma and violinist and composer Louis Spohr were among the performers .

In 1867 an opera house was built for the first time on the site of today's Alte Oper . It held 1155 visitors, but remained without its own ensemble until 1894. The first city theater, the building of which the city had taken over and rebuilt two years earlier - financed by Erfurt citizens - opened on September 15, 1894. At that time it was customary for the director in charge of the theater to lease the three-division house and maintain it at his own expense. In 1910 the world premiere of the operetta Grand Hotel Excelsior by Robert Stolz took place here.

Weimar Republic

With the end of the monarchy in 1919, the German court theaters fell under the care of the states and cities. In 1923 Erfurt took over the financial security of the theater. The previous tenants and theater director William Schirmer was the first urban director . Since then, the city has contributed most of the financing for the theater.

In 1925 the “Kammerspiele im Stadthaussaal” (Meister-Eckehart-Straße) was launched. Contemporary pieces and chamber operas complemented the artistic offer in the main building. In addition to the theater work, the magazine Der Kontakt. Erfurt Bühnenblätter published.

National Socialism

Shortly before the so-called Combat League for German Culture began to determine the schedule in Erfurt in 1933, Kurt Weill's and Georg Kaiser's Der Silbersee (at the same time as Leipzig and Magdeburg) premiered. The city theater was renamed “Deutsches Volkstheater” and the “Kammerspiele” was renamed “Reichshallentheater”.

Since the theater building was spared during the war, theater operations could be resumed as early as July 21, 1945 with a “Colorful Evening”.

Post-war and GDR times

Due to great demand, the former club house "Resource" in the cloister corridor (the former theater ) was opened on August 29, 1949 with Goethe's Iphigenie on Tauris as a "New Theater" venue. In 1956 the name was changed to "Schauspielhaus" and the "Stadttheater" was renamed the "Opera House". In 1957, the rehearsal hall of the ballet, which had since moved into the opera house, was converted into a “small stage”.

During these years there was passionate experimentation and the Erfurt Municipal Theaters were able to advertise themselves with a particularly large number of world premieres . Guest performances led the ensemble u. a. to Lithuania , Poland and to a literary-musical program in Hanover .

From 1965 onwards, the theater developed under General Director Bodo Witte into the largest cultural institution in what was then the Erfurt district . In the 1980s, the cabaret “ Die Arche ” and the puppet theater formed a new division of the municipal theaters, which has been based in the “ Theater Waidspeicher ”, a former warehouse for woad , since 1986 .

Bodo Witte engaged general music director Ude Nissen , opera director Günter Imbiel (later Manfred Straube ), ballet master Sigrid Trittmacher-Koch († 2014), costume designer Waltraud Irene Moser († 1988), drama director Ekkehard Kiesewetter and the singer-actor and director Joachim Franke as a team . Together they created a series of productions of operas and musicals such as Porgy and Bess , West Side Story and Cabaret . Ekkehard Kiesewetter brought out numerous world premieres and first performances, the theater ensemble received prizes and guest invitations at home and abroad.

The drama director initially worked in the “triumvirate” with Jürgen Müller (equipment) and Kaspar Königshof (dramaturgy), then later - before Ingeborg Wolf became first drama advisor - with the first drama advisor Harald Gerlach . This playwright, poet and writer worked as a literary assistant to the director after his time as a dramaturge and later became an in-house author. The Municipal Theater Erfurt raised by his opera The price and Jest, Satire, Irony and Deeper Meaning (music: Karl Ottomar Treibmann ) and the theater texts the road and the layer out.

In 1989, the year of change , the Städtische Bühnen also brought politically explosive productions such as The Knights of the Round Table by Christoph Hein , directed by Klaus Stephan and dramaturgy by Ingeborg Wolf. The artists also contributed to the non-violent change of society by reading out resolutions.

After 1990

Under the new artistic director Dietrich Taube , the restructuring to the Theater Erfurt was completed in the 1991/1992 season. The greatest outwardly visible signs of this change were the spin-off of the Waidspeicher and the establishment of the DomStufen-Festspiele in 1994.

New building in Brühl

In 1997 the opera house was closed due to structural defects and the entire theater business was now concentrated on the theater. In order to be able to offer the audience a more varied program, the “KuppelTheater” was opened on May 8, 1999 as a second venue.

As early as 1997, the design by Professor Jörg Friedrich and Partners from Hamburg / Düsseldorf was selected for a new theater building - initially planned in the Hirschgarten - at an international architecture competition. But for financial reasons, they quickly found a better-subsidized property in Brühl. There - on Mainzerhofplatz - the groundbreaking ceremony took place on April 20, 1999. The topping-out ceremony was celebrated on September 5, 2001 .

The new building was opened on September 12, 2003 with the world premiere of the opera Luther by Peter Aderhold . In the following year the Erfurt Opera was awarded the 2004 Thuringian State Prize for Architecture and Urban Development .

Venues

The main venue of the theater is the new building in Erfurt Brühl . There the large house offers space for 840 visitors, in the studio there are up to 200 spaces. A part of the studio with up to 100 seats serves as an event room under the name Salon im Studio . A theater called a theatrium is located in the inner courtyard of the theater building . Further events take place in the orchestra rehearsal room. In the urban area, the Domplatz is the venue for the DomStufen with up to 2000 seats. Further events of the theater take place in the ballroom of the Erfurt town hall and in the Thomaskirche .

Artistic focus

World premieres

Under General Director Guy Montavon , new artistic priorities were set. This was done with the aim of offering demanding and ambitious musical theater for the whole of Thuringia . The programmatic objectives include one world premiere (premiere) per season in the Great House, including:

title composer date
Bach's last opera Stanley Walden December 21, 2002
Luther Peter Aderhold September 14, 2003
Cuba libre Cong Su March 19, 2005
Death Knocks ( Death knocks on ) Christian Jost May 6, 2005
Waiting for the Barbarians ( Waiting for the Barbarians ) Philip Glass September 10, 2005
Anger Andrea Lorenzo Scartazzini September 9, 2006
Mariana Pineda Flavio Testi September 8, 2007
Martin L. - The musical Gisle Kverndokk July 5, 2008
The Judge and His Hangman Franz Hummel November 8, 2008
The Orphan ( Orphan ) Jeffrey Ching November 29, 2009
The shining river Johanna Doderer October 31, 2010
Lady Magnesia Mieczysław vineyard February 2, 2012
The potion of immortality ETA Hoffmann April 28, 2012
The Wives of the Dead ( Women of the Dead ) Alois Bröder February 2, 2013
Everyone - the rock opera Wolfgang Böhmer July 10, 2014
Le sang noir ( The black blood ) François Fayt November 29, 2014

The Erfurt Theater maintains an exchange with other European and American opera houses through co-productions. So far, partners have been a. the Opéra de Monte Carlo , the National Theater in Prague , the Opéra de Montpellier , the Leipzig Opera , the Teatro Regio Turin and the opera houses in Austin and Cincinnati .

Rediscoveries

In recent years, the Erfurt Theater has devoted itself to works that have largely been forgotten. These included:

Opera composer date
Messidor Alfred Bruneau 2005
Fernand Cortez Gaspare Spontini 2006
Fedra Ildebrando Pizzetti 2008
The little girl from Heilbronn Karl Reinthaler 2009
Nana Manfred Gurlitt 2010
Robin Hood Albert Dietrich 2011
Čarodejka (The Sorceress) Peter Tchaikovsky 2011
I Medici Ruggero Leoncavallo 2013
Sigurd Ernest Reyer 2015 (German premiere)

Discography

  • Das Käthchen von Heilbronn , Karl Reinthaler
    with: Samuel Bächli (conductor), Marisca Mulder, Ilia Papandreou, Richard Carlucci, Peter Schöne , Máté Sólyom-Nagy a. a., Erfurt Philharmonic Orchestra, Opera Choir of the Erfurt Theater, Label: cpo
  • The shining river , Johanna Doderer
    with: Walter E. Gugerbauer (conductor), John Bellemer, Marisca Mulder, Peter Schöne, Stéphanie Müther, Florian Götz u. a., Erfurt Philharmonic Orchestra, Opera Choir of the Erfurt Theater, Label: Quinton
  • Nana , Manfred Gurlitt
    with: Enrico Calesso (conductor), Ilia Papandreou, Peter Schöne, Richard Carlucci, Juri Batukov a. a., Erfurt Philharmonic Orchestra, Opera Choir of the Erfurt Theater, Label: capriccio

advancement

The theater is supported by the Gesellschaft der Theater- und Musikfreunde e. V. In addition to the theater work, a "theater salon" takes place every month in the theater restaurant 1894 . Here you have the opportunity to take a look behind the scenes and learn more in-depth information about the productions in conversation with actors, directors, dramaturges and many others. In addition, the company awards an audience award every season that honors the best production of the past season.

Directors

Web links

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

Coordinates: 50 ° 58 '27.9 "  N , 11 ° 1' 3.6"  E