Berlin Waldbühne
The Waldbühne in Berlin is an open-air theater . It is located at the western end of the Berlin Olympic Park in the Westend part of the Charlottenburg-Wilmersdorf district and offers space for 22,000 spectators. It was visited by over 500,000 people annually at peak times.
Location and architecture
The Waldbühne is located in a bend in the Murellenschlucht at the southern end of the Ruhleben flow meadow . It was built in 1936 as Dietrich-Eckart-Freilichtbühne (named after Dietrich Eckart , an early supporter of National Socialism and who gave the idea to Adolf Hitler ) as part of the construction work for the Olympic Games northwest of what was then the Reichssportfeld under the direction of the architect Werner March according to plans by Konrad Robert Heidenreich .
At that time Heidenreich was part of Werner March's staff and had carried out studies for the design of the Waldbühne in Italy , among other places . The Murellenschlucht forms a natural valley basin between the Murellenberg and the northernmost foothills of the Pichelsberge or the plateau of the Breiten Berg, on the slope of which the spectator stands were built and on which the former Olympic site is located. The facility is based on the ideal type of ancient Greek theater . The acoustics benefited from the increasing increase in the rows of seats with the distance from the stage, as well as the natural, steep opposite slope behind the stage . In the middle of the stands was the leader's box of honor , under which the director's positions, the sound control and the lighting system were hidden.
The entrance is framed by two high reliefs by the sculptor Adolf Wamper . The relief honoring heroes (two naked youths) to the left of the entrance should symbolize the "national festival", the relief poetry (two naked women) the "musical festival". To the east of the stage are the buildings of the Maifeld , the Langemarckhalle and the bell tower , which belong to the Berlin Olympic Park .
history
time of the nationalsocialism
The suggestion to build an open-air theater came from the Reich Propaganda Minister Joseph Goebbels , and in October 1933 Adolf Hitler demanded space for 100,000 spectators in the open-air theater. The gymnastics competitions took place there during the 1936 Olympic Games . Their main purpose, however, were performances of the supporting program, the opera Herakles by Georg Friedrich Händel and the Thingspiel Frankenburger Würfelspiel by the folk poet Eberhard Wolfgang Möller , which turned the stage into a Thingplatz . The two supporting events reflect the motifs of the reliefs in the entrance area.
Post war era and 1960s
After the Second World War , the stage was given the name Waldbühne. At first it served as an open-air cinema , u. a. as a venue for the Berlinale , then it was used for boxing matches. War damage was repaired in the 1960s. From 1961 it was mainly used for rock concerts.
On September 15, 1965 came to a concert by the Rolling Stones to riots . Concertgoers, disappointed by the short duration of the concert, demolished the benches and fought for over four hours with the police, who also used water cannons . The property damage amounted to around 400,000 marks (adjusted for purchasing power in today's currency: around 813,000 euros), and S-Bahn cars were also damaged. The Waldbühne was not repaired until seven years later, but was hardly used afterwards because concert organizers preferred closed halls as they were weatherproof. The riots were criticized in the GDR and, together with the Leipzig beat demo, led to extensive restrictions on the beat movement and thus on youth culture in the GDR .
present
In March 1981 the concert organizers Peter Schwenkow and Jochen Zanke acquired the exclusive rights of use for the Waldbühne with their then concert concept and put it back into operation. In 2003 the current tent construction was installed above the stage.
In the meantime, the stage is a popular place for rock , pop and classical concerts from May to September . The seasonal highlight is the Berliner Philharmoniker's performance, which is sold out months in advance . The West-Eastern Divan Orchestra under the direction of Daniel Barenboim made guest appearances in the Waldbühne for the first time in 2008 and annually since 2011 . This orchestra consists of Israeli and Arab musicians in equal parts and has a wide repertoire from Mozart and Beethoven to Wagner and Ravel to modern times .
The film screenings under the motto Kino in der Waldbühne with the films Blues Brothers and Rocky Horror Picture Show had cult status , to which thousands of fans came in disguise to sing along loudly every year. These cinema events have not taken place since the early 2000s, with the exception of 2006, however, when the number of visitors was low.
In the course of a new tender by the Berlin Senate in September 2008, the listed company CTS Eventim AG was awarded the contract for the Berlin open-air stage and has been operating it since 2009. Thanks to the operator's partnership with the nearby Bundesliga - club Hertha BSC was on 10 April 2010 with the match Hertha BSC against VfB Stuttgart for the first time in the history of forest stage a football game from the neighboring Olympic Stadium live in the forest stage transfer. On May 12, 2012, in the absence of suitable public viewing spaces in Berlin, the main sponsor of Borussia Dortmund rented the Waldbühne in order to give the tens of thousands of fans who had come to see the DFB Cup final.
In July 2012, the women's and men's Grand Slam of the FIVB World Tour in beach volleyball was held here.
Awards
Events in the Waldbühne have received the Live Entertainment Award several times :
- 2017 Jur y prize for the Peace by Peace Festival (P × P Festival) by P × P Embassy e. V. and Semmel Concerts Entertainment
- 2015 Concert of the year for The Rolling Stones performance on June 10, 2014, produced by DEAG Deutsche Entertainment
- 2014 Concert of the year for the Muse performance on July 14, 2013, produced by ct creative talent gmbh
- 2012 Concert of the Year for Rainald Grebe and the Orchestra of Reconciliation , produced by Semmel Concerts, Rita Baus Kulturmanagement, Alexia Agathos Agency
Web links
- Website of the operator of the Berlin Waldbühne
- Sketches and architectural drawings of the Dietrich-Eckart open-air theater , made 1934–1940 by Werner March. (Holdings of the Architecture Museum of the TU Berlin )
Individual evidence
- ^ Werner March: Reichssportfeld building. Deutscher Kunstverlag, 1936, pp. 32–33. Online at digilib.tu-graz.at
- ^ Stephan Brandt: From the Grunewald racecourse to the Olympic Stadium. Sutton Verlag, Erfurt 2015, ISBN 978-3954004942 , pp. 82-83.
- ↑ Volker Kluge : Olympiastadion Berlin - stones begin to talk . Parthos-Verlag, Berlin 1999. ISBN 3-932529-28-6 , p. 70.
- ^ The Rolling Stones concert in the West Berlin Waldbühne. In: Blickpunkt , No. 143, November 1965.
- ↑ Christin Nax: Can music culture be steered? At NDR Online. September 22, 2008.
- ↑ became famous Walter Ulbricht's statement: "Is it really true that we have nu copy any dirt that comes from the West? I think, comrades, with the monotony of the Je-Je-Je, and whatever it is called, yes, we should put an end to it. "( WAV file )
- ↑ Waldbühne gets a new tenant. In: Der Tagesspiegel from September 9, 2008.
- ↑ CTS EVENTIM is awarded the contract for Waldbühne Berlin ( Memento from August 4, 2010 in the Internet Archive )
Competition venues for the 1936 Summer Olympics
Coordinates: 52 ° 30 ′ 57 ″ N , 13 ° 13 ′ 44 ″ E