Theater Hagen

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The Hagen theater was inaugurated as a municipal theater on October 5, 1911 and is located in the historic building in downtown Hagen . With around 180,000 visitors a year and a focus on music theater, the theater is one of the landmarks and cultural attractions known beyond the city.

Theater building
Women statues by Milly Steger above the portal of the city theater

history

In 1909 a competition was published in the Zentralblatt der Bauverwaltung to obtain designs for a new theater building in Hagen Westphalia . Architects had already been invited to draft the theater beforehand, but these were not pursued any further due to changes in the program and the building site. The prize money was 3,000, 2,000 and 1,000  marks .

On May 27, 1910, the supervisory board of the Hagener Theater AG decided to commission the new theater building on Elberfelder Strasse. Ernst Vetterlein's design emerged as the winner from the competition . The building under his direction (650,000 marks) was officially opened on October 5, 1911. The sculptor Milly Steger had created four female figures that stood above the portal and whose nakedness gave rise to protests. Oskar Kaiser, previously director of the existing Hagen theater ensemble, became director of the new city theater. In the first seasons, the drama of the own ensemble dominated compared to the purchased opera guest performances of an often loveless quality.

In 1914 Kaiser was succeeded by the court actor Franz Ludwig as director, whose plans for the Hagen Theater were not implemented until 1918 due to the World War. An important premiere for the Hagen music theater was the performance of Carl Maria von Weber's Freischütz with in-house singers on July 20, 1919. In the following season, major operas were played for the first time - e. B. Wagner, Verdi, Puccini - produced in-house. The troubled economic times brought the theater into great financial difficulties, so that the house had to be temporarily closed in the early 1920s.

The first merger of the Hagen theater with the Münster municipal theaters was to solve the financial problems in 1923/24: Hagen was the seat for operas and operettas, Münster provided the theater. The Münster director Max Krüger was in charge of both houses. But the theater marriage did not go as expected, the experiment failed. In 1923, Richard Dornseiff, the former head director of the Altona Theater, was a director at the Hagen stage who stood for a modern, contemporary direction in theater, but did not appeal to the audience, so that he had to leave the theater after three years.

Hans Hartmann, who later became the director of West German Broadcasting, became Dornseiff's successor. He ran the theater with great commercial skill and was able to introduce a whole range of technical innovations.

In 1930 Paul Smolney became director of the Hagener Bühne, which gained an excellent reputation through his artistic direction. As so often before, there were again thoughts of merging under his directorship, first with Dortmund, then with Wuppertal. At the end of 1932, the Hagener Theater-AG was no longer able to continue running the house with heavily cut municipal grants. In order to preserve the theater, the ensemble founded a civil society and elected two members, WG von Keller and Willie Schmitt, as directors. But the “community theater”, as it was now called, did not stand a chance for long. On the day Hitler came to power, a different time began for the stage. The last two directors resigned at the end of March 1933 after a vote of no confidence. With the 1933/34 season, the directorship passed into the hands of NSDAP member Hermann Bender, who had previously been engaged as an opera singer, and the joint theater became a stock corporation. From then on, the Reich Minister for Public Enlightenment and Propaganda was responsible for the city stages. This said something essential about the tasks of the theater, which from now on were also instruments for indoctrination of the people. In mid-October 1934, the city dissolved the Hagener Theater AG and bought the theater without paying the shareholders.

The repertoire of the Hagen stage initially offered predominantly the old, tried and tested operas and operettas, there were also a few dedicated National Socialist pieces to be seen in the theater, the cheerful was preferred. "The German Stage" in Hagen, later renamed the Nazi cultural community, became the second largest theater community in the empire. In 1935, the National Socialist Chambers of Culture began to kick Jewish artists from the ensemble. The 25th anniversary of the Hagen Theater in 1936 was celebrated with a ceremony, which was primarily the self-praise of the new masters.

Even after the outbreak of World War II, cultural life continued. The population was called on to go to the theater, new operas and plays were announced and new artists were hired. It was not until the 1940/41 season that there were disruptions caused by the war, e.g. B. started the season later and the performances could not last longer than 9 p.m. due to the increasing number of bombings and the associated blackout. The theater increasingly took on the political task entrusted to it by the state to keep the audience in a good mood, for which the government also took on immense deficits. The theaters also had to issue the slogans for the final victory by offering a mercilessly cheerful program. In July 1944, it was officially announced that “the organizational form of the National Socialist theater had fully proven itself”. Just a month later, most of the theaters - including the Hagen Theater - were shut down and the artists were “sent to war”. The building was so destroyed by bombing that gaming was no longer possible.

After the end of the war, in May 1945, there was no more cultural life in Hagen. But on August 19 of the same year an “opera and operetta evening” took place in the unadorned assembly hall of the secondary school in Haspe. For the next four years, the gym of the Hasper Oberschule was the place for drama and music theater performances as the “New Theater” next to the chamber music hall of the town hall. As one of the first stages after the war, Hagen was able to set up a regular theater operation under the direction of Otto Schönfeldt (1912–1994).

At the beginning of the 1947/48 season, Hermann Werner took over overall responsibility for the Hagen stage for the next 27 years and, as the first major hurdle, had to overcome the currency reform and its effects. On September 5, 1949, the rebuilt theater was ceremoniously opened with a performance of the Rosenkavalier ; the 960 guests at the premiere were mainly the craftsmen who had restored the theater for 430,000 DM in just five months.

On February 14, 1950, the Hagens city council decided to renounce its own acting division, initially with the Schauspielhaus Bochum, the most prominent play in West Germany, under the direction of Saladin Schmitt, was added to the Hagen Theater. Werner's directorship ensured a clear course, reliability and continuity. Happy years began for the theater, which were expressed in increasing numbers of visitors - space utilization rose from 41% (1949) to 90.6% (1956) - and artistic highlights. In 1954, Hagen experienced its first cyclical performance of Richard Wagner's Der Ring des Nibelungen . From 1956 onwards there was the much acclaimed “Festival of Voices” for 11 seasons: top singers from European festivals and renowned opera houses gave guest performances on the Hagen stage. But not only at these seasonal highlights you could hear good voices in Hagen, top singers sang entire series of performances here.

In 1961 the fiftieth anniversary of the theater was celebrated. a. with Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg . Outside of the subscription, a new series was launched with “The Trial”, which introduced contemporary music and dramatic work. In 1962 the Hagen audience saw Kiss me, Kate, the first self-produced musical.

In 1966 the Bochumer Schauspielhaus withdrew from Hagen, from now on the state theaters and touring theaters made guest appearances. The city - just like the neighboring cities - had to save, so again, this time concrete, merger plans came on the table. An expert opinion from 1969, however, strongly warned against a merger, with whatever stage, and suggested a number of internal changes. The theater community with Dortmund did not materialize.

From the 1973/74 season, the Städtische Bühne Hagen was under new management: Manfred Schnabel proved his ideas of a successful ensemble theater in the 13 years of his directorship. This included a ballet that was continuously built up over twelve years (until 1983) under ballet master Janez Samec and programmatic series, e.g. B. "cheerful opera from Eastern Europe" or "cheerful pre-classical", which ran through the repertoire for several years. The “Mobile Theater” was launched as a permanent establishment in 1978 and played for both children and adults, and the educational theater program grew. Matinees, special events, work discussions, introductions and workshops soon became a matter of course at the theater.

In 1982 a project was born that made the Hagen Theater into the German “Musical Mecca” in the following years: the “Days of Musicals”. A authors' competition for musicals was organized, the winning piece was produced in Hagen, and workshops and guest performances by foreign productions ensured an exciting program. The “Days of Musicals” were on the program every two years.

In November 1986, after Manfred Schnabel was appointed director of the Essen theater, Peter Pietzsch became director in Hagen. Right at the beginning of his directorship he was able to demonstrate his unconventionality and his commitment: when the stage had to be closed after the main rehearsal of “Rigoletto” due to the risk of collapse, Pietzsch found a place in Leverkusen where the theater and audience experienced a grandiose premiere. The musical review of the post-war years Can you hear my secret calls? premiered in 1989 in the theater café, the last performance took place in 2000 in the large house. More and more in-house productions were shown again, mostly directed by Peter Schütze.

In 1993, “Strandpiraten” by Ethel Smyth was one of the opera excavations and world premieres that brought the stage to the national feuilleton more often. Although repeatedly pronounced dead, the ballet in Hagen had now found a permanent place in the program. The school and youth theater days were held for the 10th time in 1999, a separate youth theater program met with great interest and the establishment of a new theater youth club were just some of the characteristics of an intensified cooperation between theater and school.

In 2000 Rainer Friedemann became the new director of the Hagen Theater and was able to open the Hagen children's and youth theater in the youth center "Globe" in the first year of his directorship. In 2003, the Hagen theater received a new modern workshop and stage, in which two new venues were inaugurated: the rehearsal and studio stage opushagen, where u. a. Song recitals, experimental music theater or the “TanzRäume” festival established a new “Kleines Haus”, as did the lutzhagen. The 1st International AIDS Dance Gala, the proceeds of which went to AIDS-Hilfe Hagen, in 2004 lined up dance highlights from international companies. In the years that followed, song recitals by members of the ensemble advanced from an insider tip to a popular success.

The new host, Norbert Hilchenbach, opened his directorship with Jake Heggie's Dead Man Walking in 2007 and began a series of modern American operas, which continued with Endstation Sehnsucht , the European premiere of Salsipuedes and Street Scene . In the 2007/2008 season, the Hagen Philharmonic Orchestra celebrated its 100th birthday with extraordinary, acclaimed concerts. The ballet made a name for itself with its ballet evenings and looked for new ways to work with young people such as B. with BallroomDance or with young people with disabilities with the award-winning Closing the Gap. For the “European Capital of Culture RUHR.2010”, the Hagen Theater presented extraordinary performances from all areas.

The “Every student in the theater” campaign, a joint action by the theater support association and the theater, was supposed to enable every student in the 3rd to 7th and from the 10th grade from Hagen and the surrounding area to visit the theater once a year in Hagen. In the first year, the selected productions were The Fairy-Queen and the fairy tale opera Die Drei Rätsel. The action, which was received with great response, was continued.

In 2011 the lutzhagen celebrated its 10th birthday with an exciting anniversary program. At the beginning of the 2011/12 season, the Hagen Theater is due to outstanding productions such as B. the opera Gegen die Wand in the top group of the NRW theaters.

In December 2012, the theater was the German Cultural Council on the early warning list of the Red List of Culture set (Category 3) because it is exposed to financial cuts in decades and thus a more successful theatrical work is hindered.

financing

The Hagen Theater is mainly financed by tax money , paid out by the city of Hagen, and the theater also receives state funding for specific projects.

Artistic Director

Intendants (I) and General Music Directors (GMD):

literature

  • Jens Färber: artist, citizen, government. Music and theater politics in Hagen in the 19th and 20th centuries. Munster 1999.
  • Jörg Fritzsche: 100 years of the Hagen Orchestra. The history of the Hagen Philharmonic. In: Philharmonic Orchestra Hagen (Ed.): 100 Years Philharmonic Orchestra Hagen 1907-2007. (Festschrift) Hagen 2007, pp. 13–87.
  • Peter P. Pachl (Ed.): A theater in motion. 13 years of the Peter Pietzsch era at theaterHAGEN 1987-2000. Bookmarks Verlag, Hagen 2000, ISBN 3-930217-40-6 .
  • Ute Sieberth: From citizens for citizens. The Hagen theater. In: Hagener Impuls , Volume 19 (1997) pp. 9-15.
  • Christian Wildhagen (Hrsg.): Theater Hagen 2000 to 2007. Intendanz Rainer Friedemann. Hagen 2007. (available from Theater Hagen)
  • Maria Hilchenbach: theaterhagen. 100 years 1911-2011. (Festschrift) 2011.
  • 100 years of Theater Hagen. In: Westfalenpost / Westfälische Rundschau of October 4, 2011, special supplement, p. 7 ff.

Web links

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

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ To obtain drafts for a new theater building in Hagen Westphalia. Zentralblatt der Bauverwaltung, 1909, accessed on September 19, 2019 .
  2. ^ Joseph Trafton - General Music Director. Theater Hagen gGmbH, accessed on February 12, 2018 .
  3. ^ Francis Hüers - Intendant. Theater Hagen gGmbH, accessed on July 29, 2018 .

Coordinates: 51 ° 21 ′ 30 ″  N , 7 ° 28 ′ 0 ″  E