Ötigheim open-air stage
.jpg)
The open-air theater in Ötigheim is an open-air theater operated by the Volksschauspiele Ötigheim eV association in the Baden-Württemberg village of Ötigheim near Rastatt . With a grandstand for up to 4,000 people, the Ötigheim stage is the largest of all the open-air stages in Germany used by amateur theaters. The stage is a member of the Association of German Open Air Theaters .
history
The Ötigheim open-air stage can look back on over a hundred years of history. The first performances took place in the current facility as early as 1906.
founding
The stage was set up through the initiative of the Ötigheim local chaplain, Josef Saier . He feared that the increase in industrial work could alienate the local youth from life in the village. So Saier looked for a way to offer the local youth a meaningful pastime. Just one year after taking office in Ötigheim in 1905, Saier was able to put the Ötigheim open-air theater into operation in a former gravel pit on September 30, 1906 with the help of many volunteers from the village. The play The Two Tilly was performed .
First years
The two Tillys were performed a few times again in 1907, but the theater in Ötigheim came to a standstill again in the same year due to a lack of profitability. In 1910, however, Saier was able to activate enough participants in front of and behind the stage so that Schiller's Wilhelm Tell could be performed that same year . The production was so successful that the same play was played again in 1911 and 1913, with over 100,000 spectators for the first time in 1913.
Continuous game operation
From now on the popularity of the Ötigheimer Volksschauspiele grew from year to year and pieces were performed every summer. A large part of the population of the village was directly or indirectly involved in the games. The game continued uninterruptedly until 1939, after which World War II forced an interruption, but gaming was resumed as early as 1945, shortly after the end of the war. The drama most played on the Ötigheim open-air stage to this day is Wilhelm Tell , which has earned the theater complex the nickname “Tellplatz” among the population. Since 1950 the Volksschauspiele Ötigheim has been performing a passion play written by Josef Saier especially for the stage at the beginning of a new decade , which premiered in 1948. The Volksschauspiele are still committed to the "artistic and cultural-political-Christian line" shaped by Saier.
Expansion of the program
The repertoire of folk plays includes numerous works from world literature, such as Goethe's Götz von Berlichingen , Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet or Hoffmansthal's Jedermann , but also musicals, operettas and opera classics. A children's play, the festive concert and numerous guest performances complete the program.
As early as the 1930s, in addition to the theater play, dance evenings and occasionally parallel second productions were offered on the stage. From around 1950 it became the rule that not just one production was on the program.
Children's theater
In 1991 a children's program was launched parallel to the regular pieces. Since then, three productions have usually been carried out in parallel per season.
music
From the mid-1970s, musicals , operettas and operas were increasingly being performed in Ötigheim . For example, were Schwarzwaldmädel (1973-1975), My Fair Lady (1999), Ralph Benatzky Singspiel The White Horse Inn (most recently in 2008), Andrew Lloyd Webber's musical Jesus Christ Superstar (2003 and 2011), Mozart's Magic Flute (2002) and Ludwig van Beethoven Fidelio on the game board. While a live orchestra provided the stage music in earlier years, it came off the tape in 1970. From the former stage musicians, the Ötigheim Chamber Orchestra emerged , which has functioned again as the Ötigheim Volksschauspiele orchestra since 2007 and as such provides musical accompaniment to the musical theater performances and concerts on the open-air stage. The festive concerts have been an integral part of the theater summer on the open-air stage since 1982 . On two evenings in July, the orchestra, dance groups and choirs from the Volksschauspiele offer a varied program with an annually changing motto. The highlight of the concert evenings is a large fireworks display .
Guest performances
The Ötigheim open-air stage has also opened for guest performances. In addition to regular musical nights, concerts by Udo Jürgens , Montserrat Caballé , the pop duo Marshall & Alexander , Helge Schneider and Helmut Lotti have taken place here. In the summer of 2011, pop star Semino Rossi will appear on the Ötigheim open-air stage for the first time .
Movie
The performance of the Passion Play was brought to cinemas in 1950 by Ethos-Film, directed by Ernst Martin.
investment
With a width of 200 m and a depth of 60 m, the stage in Ötigheim is so large that up to 400 actors populated the podium at the same time. The play area is architecturally adapted to the pieces on the program with various stage structures. While stage structures with a height of up to 18 meters have been built since 1906, the stage construction reached a high point in the theater summer 2010: For the performances of Schiller's romantic tragedy The Maiden of Orléans , the main building in the middle of the stage was a replica of the Reims Cathedral with a total of 23 meters high Towers transformed. The auditorium offers space for 4,000 visitors. The roofing of the auditorium had already begun in 1911, and a number of Ötigheim citizens had raised and sold their cattle to finance them. In 1960 and 1961 the spectator area was completely redesigned. Over 100,000 people regularly see the performances in Ötigheim each season. A normal performance involves between 400 and 600 people on, behind and around the stage.
Game operation
In addition to the up to 80 roles, most of whom are amateur actors , many other people are involved in the performances. The operating association has its own ballet school with around 60 students, a large choir with around 140 and a youth choir with around 50 members, an ensemble of up to 500 extras , the orchestra on the stage, as well as an associated youth orchestra and people around take care of the care and training of the animals used in the productions. In addition, many volunteers are still active in the entire club administration, only in the areas of technology, costumes, stage construction, make-up and office there are few full-time employees.
The participants receive a small allowance, only 10 percent of the stage's income comes from grants, the remaining 90 percent must be brought in at the cash register.
Small stage
The Small Stage was founded in 1963 by Willi Panter. Together with some students he developed the play From Morning to Evening (as a dramatic version of the Tolstoy novella How Much Earth Does Man Need? ) And brought it to the stage with great success. Initially without a permanent venue, the small stage found a platform for its work on the upper floor of the Ötigheim Volksschauspiele office in 1980, where it usually plays a room theater with 85 seats in the winter months.
The small stage is a springboard for talented and ambitious young actors and directors. The room theater's program ranges from comedies such as Brandon Thomas ' Charley's Aunt , Curt Goetz' Das Haus in Montevideo to dramas such as Éric-Emmanuel Schmitt's Hotel zu der Zwei Welt , musicals such as Der kleine Horrorladen and song and cabaret evenings.
Amateurs and professional actors
While the Ötigheim Volksschauspiele were purely amateur theater until 1934 , regulations of the National Socialists forced the theater makers around Josef Saier to use professional actors for the first time that year. To this day, professional actors, singers and directors have been hired for particularly difficult roles and productions. Toni Berger , Günter Mack , Antje Hagen and Holger Marks and Sepp Strubel have already played in Ötigheim .
literature
- Martin Walter: 100 years of Volksschauspiele Ötigheim - the people play for the people. ISBN 3-89735-432-2
- Volksschauspiele Ötigheim have joined the VdF. In: Freilichtbühne Aktuell, December 2007
- Peter Hank: Pastor Josef Saier and his theater village Ötigheim - idea and beginnings of the Ötigheimer Volksschauspiele. Heidelberg / Ubstadt-Weiher / Weil am Rhein / Basel (Regional Culture Publishing House) 2008 ISBN 978-3-89735-564-4
- Clemens Kieser: Light and durable. The grandstand roof of the Volksschauspiele Ötigheim. In: Preservation of monuments in Baden-Württemberg , year 39, 2010, issue 1, p. 50 f. ( PDF )
Web links
Individual evidence
- ↑ a b c d History of the Ötigheim open-air theater
- ↑ a b c Portrait of Josef Saier on the website of the Archdiocese of Freiburg , accessed on September 9, 2012
- ↑ a b c Volksschauspiele Ötigheim have joined the VDF. In: Freilichtbühne Aktuell, December 2007, p. 20 f. (Journal of the Association of German Open-Air Theaters e.V.)
- ↑ a b Archives of the Ötigheim open-air theater
- ↑ a b Departments of the Volksschauspiele ( Memento of the original from March 16, 2005 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
- ↑ The Passion. Internet Movie Database , accessed May 22, 2015 .
- ↑ The Passion on www.Peplumania.com
- ↑ We want to be a unique people of brothers ... In: Schau.Spiel. Journal of the State Association of Amateur Theater Baden-Württemberg. Edition 2/2006.
- ^ Matthias Heine: The over-Oberammergau. In: Die Welt, July 25, 2007. Online here
- ↑ The Small Stage ( Memento of the original from March 16, 2005 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
- ^ Werner Sachsenmeier: Ötigheim veteran, board member, actor, archivist. In: Look.Play. Journal of the State Association of Amateur Theater Baden-Württemberg. Edition 2/2006.
Coordinates: 48 ° 52 ′ 59 ″ N , 8 ° 13 ′ 53 ″ E