Wilhelm Henkel (actor)

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Wilhelm Henkel ( 1788 in Berlin - January 3, 1853 in Baden-Baden ) was a German theater actor , director and director .

Life

Henkel was designated as a merchant by his father, but he was drawn to the stage because of August Wilhelm Iffland's achievements . He first tried his hand at the amateur theaters Thalia and Urania in Berlin, receiving guidance from Iffland for his future profession.

After winning his parents over to his plans, he made his debut as "Adolf" in August von Kotzebue's Klingsberg in Neu-Strelitz. He was hired, but was underemployed, so that he was glad to be recommended by Friedrich Ludwig Schröder himself to Johann Friedrich Ernst Albrecht at the Altona Theater . He stayed there for two years and then went to the Schwerin Court Theater for three years, from there he joined August Pichler in Münster and from there to Pyrmont until he was engaged in the very first position in Frankfurt in 1819.

His rare talent for comic characters and scheming roles was already evident here and he became a darling of the audience. From 1822 to 1826 he was a member of the National Theater in Braunschweig under Ernst August Friedrich Klingemann , from 1826 to 1832 of the Court Theater in Kassel, where he returned in 1833 after a year of engagement in Oldenburg, where he stayed until 1835 and was one of the decorations on this stage. In 1835 the name Karl Immermann moved him to Düsseldorf. But when he gave up the management in 1837, he did not want to continue working there and first took over the management (with Gustav Köckert ) in Aachen and then the Düsseldorf stage itself as director. After he had worked at the latter theater until 1841, he accepted a position at the court theater in Stuttgart as a director.

For seven years he had the opportunity to offer excellent theatrical delights to an art-loving audience, until in 1848 he was given a management position in Mainz. Although he later tried his hand at larger and smaller stages, namely in classical character roles, he could no longer achieve a permanent artistic position. On January 3, 1853, he succumbed to a severe attack of chronic disease and passed away in unspeakable pain in Baden-Baden.

Henkel, in which the German stage lost a characteristic in the fullest sense of the word, always worked through the deeply moving truth of its creations. Equipped by nature with an imposing figure, his decency, graceful facial features, flexible speech organ, he characterized as an artist with a truth that always remained in close association with beauty. At the peak of his development, he played heroes, fathers and schemers, most of them with a lot of luck. His “King Philip”, “Mephisto”, “Wallenstein”, “Orange” in particular had special artistic value and it was precisely these roles that he brought to perfection at a later age.

His fame would have been even greater had he never been an acting director. When he felt compelled to become an actor again, he found a changed world that was alien to him and to which he was. He had become a stranger in the acting world. Nonetheless, he gained a reputation as an excellent artist whom art history deserves to be honored.

literature

This article is based on a public domain text from Ludwig Eisenberg's Large Biographical Lexicon of the German Stage in the 19th Century , 1903 edition.

Please only remove this note if you have revised the article to such an extent that the text reflects the current state of knowledge on this topic, this has been proven and it meets today's linguistic requirements.
personal data
SURNAME Henkel, Wilhelm
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German theater actor, director and director
DATE OF BIRTH 1788
PLACE OF BIRTH Berlin
DATE OF DEATH January 3, 1853
Place of death Baden-Baden