Walter Felsenstein

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Felsenstein (second from right) in 1958 at the memorial service for Johannes R. Becher

Walter Felsenstein (born May 30, 1901 in Vienna , † October 8, 1975 in Berlin ) was an Austrian director. He founded the Komische Oper Berlin in 1947 and was its director until 1975.

Live and act

Felsenstein's work and activity: the Komische Oper, the former Metropol-Theater

Felsenstein was a son of Franz Otto Felsenstein, a senior official of the Austrian Northwest Railway . In 1918 the family moved to Villach because the father was promoted to Vice President of the Austrian State Railways . The son should study mechanical engineering at the TH Graz . On October 22, 1920 he became a fox in the Academic Corps Teutonia in Graz . On June 4, 1921 he was reciprocated . He fought three lengths . In a letter dated February 13, 1922, he informed his corps that he was studying in Vienna and that he had no time for the actually necessary activity at the Cartel Corps Saxonia Wien . His request for inactivation as a corps loop carrier was granted on February 20, 1922.

Felsenstein was drawn to the theater. He began his career at the Vienna Burgtheater . He then worked from 1923 to 1932 at the Lübeck Theater , the Mannheim National Theater and the Beuthen Theater , where he directed for the first time. At the Theater Basel and the Theater Freiburg he came into closer contact with contemporary music theater . As a director of the opera and drama he was at the Cologne Opera (1932–1934) and at the Frankfurt Municipal Theaters (1934–1936). In 1936 the Reich Theater Chamber excluded him because of his marriage to a “non-Aryan”. He continued to work at the Stadttheater Zürich (1938–1940) and returned to Germany in 1940 with the help of Heinrich George , where he worked at the Berlin Schillertheater (1940–1944). He also directed as a guest director in Aachen , Düsseldorf , Metz and Strasbourg . In 1942 he staged Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart's Le nozze di Figaro at the Salzburg Festival (conductor Clemens Krauss , set and costumes Stefan Hlawa ). From 1945 to 1947 he worked at the Hebbel Theater in Berlin . In 1947 he founded the Komische Oper in East Berlin , of which he was director until his death.

From 1956 he was Vice President of the German Academy of the Arts of the German Democratic Republic and the Association of Theater Professionals .

Felsenstein set standards in the field of opera directing. He found elaborate productions that had previously only been reserved for acting and that had avoided previous singing conventions. Even if world stars like Sylvia Geszty , Anny Schlemm and Rudolf Schock could occasionally be signed up to the Komische Oper , the focus of Walter Felsenstein's work was on the ensemble . In addition to the artistic staff, to whom u. a. Irmgard Arnold , Anny Schlemm, Ruth Schob-Lipka , Hanns Nocker , Günter Neumann , Rudolf Asmus , Werner Enders , Erich Blasberg and Josef Burgwinkel also included the stage technicians.

In 1966 he brought the successful ballet choreographers Tom Schilling and Jean Weidt to build up a ballet ensemble that would complement the new, revolutionary opera style of the Komische Oper. Tom Schilling solved this task in a very short time and created over 75 ballet productions by 1993, which found recognition in over 30 countries worldwide. Tom Schilling's “Realistic Dance Theater” would never have become a reality without the great support of artistic director Walter Felsenstein.

Walter Felsenstein popularized the term music theater for his special operatic work. He was a translator and editor of numerous works of world opera literature, a. a. by Carmen ( Georges Bizet , 1949), La traviata ( Giuseppe Verdi , 1955). Famous productions were u. a. also Die Zauberflöte ( Mozart , 1954), Hoffmann's stories ( Jacques Offenbach , 1958), Othello (Verdi, 1959). The audience will also remember Ritter Bluebeard (Jacques Offenbach), played since 1963 and up to 1992, The Cunning Little Fox ( Leoš Janáček ), 1956, or A Midsummer Night's Dream ( Benjamin Britten ). When Felsenstein staged foreign-language operas in Berlin, they were always performed in German translation. The best-known student of Walter Felsenstein was Götz Friedrich , and Felsenstein's successor Joachim Herz should also be mentioned as the third important director at the Komische Oper at this time . Felsenstein's sons Peter Brenner (from his first marriage) and Johannes were also successful as opera directors, the youngest son Christoph initially trained as an actor at the Max Reinhardt Seminar. After that he completely changed his subject: he became a captain on a long voyage and has since worked as a university lecturer at the University of Seafaring in Wismar . In 2010 he revised the DEFA films that were made there under the direction of Walter Felsenstein. The restored films were shown in December 2010 and January 2011 in the Babylon cinema with great public interest . Many of the contributors who were still alive were present.

Residence in Glienicke / Nordbahn

After the Second World War , Felsenstein repeatedly worked as a theater director at the Burgtheater in Vienna , where he a. a. Heinrich von Kleist's Käthchen von Heilbronn and most recently Torquato Tasso (Goethe) in 1975 . In 1972 he directed Wallenstein (Schiller) at the Bavarian State Theater .

family

Felsenstein lived in West Berlin until he moved to Glienicke / Nordbahn north of Berlin in 1967 . On the Baltic island of Hiddensee he had a holiday home with a large garden in Kloster and kept donkeys there . He was also buried in the island cemetery. His second wife Maria, who died in 1987, was also buried there. The property is not marked as a memorial.

Felsenstein family grave in monastery
Funeral service for Felsenstein

Felsenstein's younger brother Theodor (1903–1983) was chairman of the newly founded Freedom Academic Association for Austria from 1950 to 1954 .

The theater director, opera director Peter Brenner , who was born as the second son on May 8, 1930, comes from his first marriage to Ellen Brenner . One of his sons from his second marriage was the music theater director and artistic director Johannes Felsenstein (1944–2017), another is the actor Christoph Felsenstein (* 1946).

Awards

Berlin memorial plaque in Berlin-Mitte ( Behrenstrasse 55-57)

Fonts

  • Stephan Stompor (ed.), Walter Felsenstein, Joachim Herz : Music theater. Contributions to methodology and staging concepts. Reclam, Leipzig 1976.
  • ... not moods, but intentions. Conversations with Walter Felsenstein. Material on Theater, Vol. 200. Theater and Society. Vol. 43. Association of Theater Professionals in the GDR, Berlin 1986.
  • Ilse Kobán (Ed.): Walter Felsenstein. Theater must always be something total. Letters, notes, speeches, interviews . Henschelverlag Art and Society, Berlin 1986, ISBN 3-362-00013-4 .
  • Walter Felsenstein: Theater. Conversations, letters, documents. Hentrich, Berlin 1991, ISBN 3-926175-95-8 .
  • Walter Felsenstein: The duty to find the truth. Letters and writings from a theater man. Foreword by Ulla Berkéwicz . Edited by Ilse Kobán. Suhrkamp, ​​Frankfurt a. M. 1997, ISBN 3-518-11986-9 .

Filmography

theatre

literature

A Midsummer Night's Dream , comedy by William Shakespeare, production by Walter Felsenstein at the Komische Oper in Berlin,
GDR postage stamp 1973

Lexically

Monographs

Ordered chronologically

  • Stephan Stompor (ed., With co-worker by Ilse Kobán): Walter Felsenstein. Writings on musical theater . Henschelverlag Kunst u. Society, Berlin 1976.
  • Dieter Kranz: Conversations with Felsenstein. From the workshop of the music theater . Henschelverlag Kunst u. Society, Berlin 1977.
  • Ilse Kobán (ed., With co-worker by Stephan Stompor): Walter Felsenstein. Theater always has to be something total. Letters, speeches, records, interviews . Henschelverlag Kunst u. Society, Berlin 1986.
  • Ilse Kobán (Ed.): Walter Felsenstein. Theatre. Conversations, letters, documents . With an afterword by Dietrich Steinbeck. Edition Hentrich, Berlin 1991. ISBN 3-926175-95-8
  • Ilse Kobán (Ed.): Walter Felsenstein. The duty to find the truth. Letters and writings from a theater man . Suhrkamp, ​​Frankfurt am Main 1997. ISBN 3-518-11986-9
  • Ilse Kobán (Ed.): Routine destroys the play, or the sow has no theater blood. Selected and commented on from letters and introductory reports on Felsenstein's ensemble work . Märkischer Verlag, Wilhelmshorst 1997, ISBN 3-931329-13-5 .
  • Robert Braunmüller: Opera as a drama. Walter Felsenstein's realistic musical theater . Max Niemeyer Verlag, Tübingen 2002, ISBN 3-484-66037-6 .
  • Rainer Homann: The score as a director's book. Walter Felsenstein's music theater. epOs-Music, Osnabrück 2005, ISBN 978-3-923486-44-1 .
  • Aksinia Raphael (Ed.): Workshop music theater. Walter Felsenstein in pictures by Clemens Kohl . Henschel, Berlin 2005 ,. ISBN 3-89487-516-X
  • Boris Kehrmann: From Expressionism to the prescribed “Realistic Music Theater” - Walter Felsenstein. A documentary biography 1901 to 1951. - 2 volumes - Tectum, Marburg 2015. (Dresdner Schriften zur Musik; 3) ISBN 978-3-8288-3266-4

items

Web links

Commons : Walter Felsenstein  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

References and comments

  1. ↑ Kösener Corpslisten 1996, 169/151
  2. ↑ The Gegenpaukanten were Hengerer des Schacht, Kurzemann (?) Vandaliae and Strasser Joanneae.
  3. ↑ Felsenstein was born 1928–1948 with Ellen Felsenstein. Brenner (* Vienna 1905) married and had two sons with her. The second is the opera director Peter Felsenstein-Brenner .
  4. ↑ Anytime with Karajan , interview in: Der Spiegel, February 4, 1965.
  5. ↑ Theodor Felsenstein (corpsarchive.de)
  6. ↑ Peter Sommeregger on info-netz-musik on October 18, 2015; Retrieved October 18, 2015.
personal data
SURNAME Felsenstein, Walter
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Austrian director
DATE OF BIRTH May 30, 1901
PLACE OF BIRTH Vienna
DATE OF DEATH October 8, 1975
Place of death Berlin