Semperoper

The Semper Opera House in Dresden is the opera house of the Saxon State Opera Dresden, as the Court and State Opera of Saxony has a long historical tradition. Orchestra of the Staatsoper is the traditional Staatskapelle Dresden. The Semper Opera House is located at the Theatre Square in the historic center of Dresden, near the Elbe. It is named after its architect Gottfried Semper.

In the season 2012/2013 was attended by around 308,000 visitors the symphony concerts, opera and ballet performances at the opera. This corresponded to an increase of five percent at a load factor of 91 percent. 2013 achieved the Semper Opera House with 770 events a turnover of 17.6 million euros, reaching a cost recovery ratio of nearly 40 percent.

  • 2.1 jewelry curtain
  • 2.2 Proszeniumsfries
  • 3.1 Intendant
  • 3.2 opera director
  • 3.3 Artistic Director of Operations
  • 3.4 conductors

History of the building

Predecessor am Zwinger

The Opera House at the Zwinger, which was from 1719 to 1849, is often referred to as the " predecessor " of the Semper Opera House. The up to 2,000 guests, the three- rank theater near present-day China Pavilion of the kennel, however, was only used until 1763 as an opera. Then you have until 1841 used the so-called Moret tables Opera House.

The first building

From 1838 to 1841 the architect Gottfried Semper built ( 1803-1879 ), a new Royal Court Theatre. The rotunda in the forms of early Italian Renaissance became famous as one of the most beautiful European theater. The first Semper Opera House was considerably closer to the castle as his still existing second theater; front of the Opera 1840, the forerunner of today's Theatre Square was created. The building was completely destroyed in a fire on 21 September 1869.

Interimsbau

Just four weeks after the fire disaster of the first Semper's Court Theatre, construction began on an interim theater at the Zwinger Wall behind the ruins of the ancient theater. After only six weeks of construction was built with the simple design means a venue that offered some 1,800 visitors space and popularly known as the " Shack " was opened with Goethe's Iphigenie auf Tauris on 2 December 1869.

The second construction

Gottfried Semper had to flee in 1849 through its participation in the Maiaufständen and was not allowed to enter many years Saxon ground. Abroad, he created during this period, for example, the Vienna Burgtheater. After the destruction of the first Semperoper 1869, in 1871 started the construction of the Second Royal Court Theatre. During construction, Gottfried Semper was not allowed to still go back to Saxony. At the request of the city's population therefore he designed in the distance a second building, which was built under the guidance of his eldest son Manfred Semper (1838-1913) from 1871 to 1878 at the Theatre Square.

The theater has a magnificent interior. The former employee Gutkaes, Ludwig Teubner, Manfred Semper gave the order to create a new digital indicating clock modeled after Gutkaes. The design of the ceiling painting and the design of the frieze above the proscenium was made according to designs by Semper James Marshall.

This second building was on the night of February 13, 1945 taken at the air raids on Dresden and badly damaged.

From 1948, the game operation at the Schauspielhaus Dresden could be continued as " Big House the State Theatre " for opera, ballet, drama and Staatskapelle. The opening ceremony was held with Beethoven's Fidelio on 22 September 1948. An administrative division between opera, ballet, Staatskapelle and the spectacle was not until the year 1983 instead of back: it emerged the State Theatre and the State Opera Dresden. At the symbolic date of February 13, 1985 the musical divisions received after 40 years of her wiedererstandenes opera house, the Semperoper, back.

The third construction

After the Second World War paved 1946-1955 safety works and conceptual studies from 1968 to 1976 before rebuilding.

On 24 June 1977, the foundation stone was laid and the reconstruction under the direction of Wolfgang Hänsch as chief architect was. Here, on the one hand, the auditorium, the walls were extended, on the other hand mixed in the stage area to the outside in order to meet the increased space requirements of the modern operatic justice. The number of seats was reduced to 1300. Otherwise, the building was rebuilt Semper plans accordingly.

Was added to a modern building, which is used as rehearsal stage, functional building and seat of government. Connected with it is the opera building bridges. The exterior facade is adorned at the corners with four sandstone masks by Peter Makolies that were made ​​in the period 1982 to 1984. The masks have a size of 2.7 times 5.2 meters.

On February 13, 1985, the 40th anniversary of the wartime destruction, the Semperoper was with Carl Maria von Weber's opera Der Freischütz under the leadership of artistic director Max Gerd Schoenfelder be re-opened - it was this work, with the Opera House on August 31, 1944 had been closed. In 1985, a central box office was established. It is located in the neighboring Altstädtischer main guard.

Although she was already State Opera, the opera was given in addition after the turn of the official title of the Saxon State Opera. The Elbe floods in August 2002 added to the Opera House to a loss of 27 million euros. Three months after the floods, opened on 9 November 2002 Dancers of the Semperoper Ballet and the Staatskapelle the season with the ballet Illusions - like Swan Lake.

As part of the 800th celebrations of the city of Dresden Dresden Opera Ball in the hall and on the stage took place on 13 January 2006 as a continuation of a 1925-1939 pre-existing tradition first place again. For this has since held annually over the seating of the opera is partially removed.

Forecourt

1991 Landesmeßstelle for radioactivity at the University of Bremen was noted in a report that the pavers were produced for road from copper slag of VEB Mansfeld Kombinat Wilhelm Pieck in front of the Semper Opera House. This patch was the isotope bismuth -214 contaminated with radiation of 1,000 becquerels per kilogram. The Federal Office for Radiation Protection nevertheless saw no "acute health hazard ".

Architecture and artistic design

See also: List of sculptures at the Semperoper

The reputation Gottfried Semper had enjoyed as a good architect in his own lifetime, was based on his masterful manipulation of form. His impressive architectural compositions were not only of artistic value, but also practical and functional at the same time properly. Then turn based appreciation that was Semper even then paid when the use of historical forms was considered superfluous and therefore open to criticism.

His urban planning as effective building is crowned above the main entrance of a bronze Panther quadriga with Dionysos and Ariadne by Johannes Schilling. The west facade of the rear stage adorn the Saxon coat of arms, the characters "love" and "justice" as well as a bust of Gottfried Semper. Near the entrance are statues as Johann Wolfgang von Goethe and Friedrich Schiller, in the side niches of the façade William Shakespeare, Sophocles, Molière and Euripides.

The inside has a logical spatial structure, which can be considered almost as a prototype for theaters in basic shape and layout of the premises. It ensures a safe, clear and commanding lead the visitors to the auditorium and is equally well suited as an architectural framework for the social encounter in the theater breaks. Above all, the design of the auditorium offers the drama and the opera best acoustic conditions.

This convenient space organism had realized in forms that are required of the ancient tradition and follow primarily models from the Italian Renaissance Semper. To dub the surface of the building structure and are formed in the interior of the building mainly made ​​of stucco, which is applied to the space -making walls and ceilings. The historicizing coating had to fulfill the spiritual claims, which provided the audience to Semper times at his theater: A rich, decorative and festive dress historical forms had to clarify the ideality of humanist thought and at the same time the cultural events a representative, prominent from the everyday, to give context. This " vesting " of structural components with decorative forms had already been described in 1863 in his clothing theory Semper.

Jewelry curtain

One of the most impressive elements of the interior design of the Semperoper is the 17 by 12 meters wide and 400 -pound jewelry curtain of Ferdinand Keller, who was re- created for the reconstruction of the house of the painters Gerhard Keil and Walter Teichert in the palace in the Great Garden. The curtain is made of sewn by hand Belgian linen, which was painted with mixed colors according to ancient techniques.

The painted decoration curtain shows a large figural composition, framed by richly decorated friezes. The upper and lower frieze contains cherubs with fruit and flower garlands, top with six picture medallions of poets, down from seven composers. The upper central medallion bearing the entwined initials of the Saxon royal couple AC - Albert and Carola. As a poet depicted: Sophocles, Shakespeare, Moliere, Lessing, Schiller and Goethe; as composer Gluck, Mozart, Beethoven, Weber, Rossini, Meyerbeer and Wagner. The figure composition in the center is framed by a lush fruit wreath, are woven into the theater masks. On a stone steps of the throne sits a winged female figure - the allegory of the imagination - and raises her right hand a burning torch aloft. You sit on the left side a hinblickende to her female figure with book and quill, the allegorical figure of serious poetry. Law of the imagination have two female figures with Lyra and violin its place, representing the instrumental music. This middle group is behind captured by a curtain, uplifting the two flying cherubs. In the foreground to store two female figures. To the left passes through a putto, who is the wife put on a dunce cap in the process. She holds in her right hand a Harlequin rod; it is the poetry of comedy. In it, the vase with Dionysian motifs is based in the lower left corner of the image. The herm of a Faun is tuned to these topics, while the long -standing figure in the background a putto holds up an open book symbolizes the story. In the lower right corner of the screen sits a woman singing, and her holding a putto an open book before. The figure of the art of singing attribute is the swan. In the background, two dancing figures are shown. The Torch of inspiring imagination so illuminates the tragedy, comedy and history on the one hand, the music, the singing and dancing on the other side. A loose reference to the Muses Melpomene, Thalia, Clio, Erato, Polyhymnia and Terpsichore is thus given, although their classic attributes are partially replaced by those of the modern theater.

Proszeniumsfries

The proscenium arch of the Semper Opera House is decorated with a frieze showing characters from drama and opera, as expressed in the frieze center Allegory of Justice Poetica ( Poetic Justice) are oriented (left to right ): Papageno, the mayor, Colombine ( Ballet ), Pierrot, Basilio, the barber, Samiel, Max, Agathe, Tannhäuser, Fenella, Masaniello, the water carrier, Florestan, Don Juan, the stone guest, Donna Anna, Iphigenia, Euterpe, Komo, Justice Poetica, Eumenides, Antigone, Oedipus, Melpomene, Othello, Desdemona, Mephistopheles, Gretchen, Faust, Nathan Wallenstein, Donna Diana, Puck, the miser, Caliban, the Capuchins ( Wallenstein's Camp ), the Page and Falstaff.

Line

Directors

  • Wolf Adolf August von Lüttichau, 1824-1862
  • Nikolaus Graf von Seebach, 1894-1919
  • Alfred Reucker, 1921-1933
  • Friedrich Theodor Paul Adolph, 1933-1935
  • Horst Seeger, 1973-1983
  • Max Gerd Schoenfelder, 1984-1990
  • Christoph Albrecht, 1991-2003
  • Gerd Uecker, 2003-2010
  • Ulrike Hessler, 2010-2012
  • Serge Dorny, originally from September 1, 2014 ( was since October 1, 2013 in Dresden under contract to prepare his directorship ); the contractual relationship has been terminated with immediate effect on February 21, 2014

Impresario

  • Karl scabbard sheath, 1920-1921
  • Rolf Wollrad, 1989-2003
  • Hans -Joachim Frey, 2004-2007
  • Eytan Pessen, 2010-2013

Artistic Director of Operations

  • Hans -Joachim Frey 1997-2003
  • Benedict Holt Bernd 2004-2010
  • Björn Peters since 2013.

Conductors

At the respective Dresden Opera House seemed eminent conductors, for example,

  • Carl Gottlieb Reißiger (1798-1859)
  • Richard Wagner (1813-1883)
  • Ernst von Schuch (1846-1914)
  • Fritz Reiner (1888-1963) in Dresden from 1914 to 1921
  • Fritz Busch (1890-1951) in Dresden from 1922 to 1933
  • Karl Böhm (1894-1981) in Dresden from 1934 to 1942
  • Karl Elmendorff (1891-1962) in Dresden from 1943 to 1944
  • Keilberth (1908-1968) in Dresden from 1945 to 1951
  • Rudolf Kempe (1910-1976) in Dresden from 1949 to 1952
  • Gerhard Lenssen (1912-1992) in Dresden ~ 1949-1962
  • Otmar Suitner (1922-2010) in Dresden from 1960 to 1964
  • Kurt Sanderling (1912-2011) in Dresden from 1964 to 1967
  • Herbert Blomstedt (* 1927) in Dresden 1975 until 1985.
  • Hans Vonk (1942-2004) in Dresden from 1985 to 1990
  • Giuseppe Sinopoli (1946-2001) in Dresden from 1992 to 2001
  • Semyon Bychkov (* 1952) in Dresden 2001 to 2002.
  • Bernard Haitink (* 1929) in Dresden 2002 to 2004.
  • Fabio Luisi (* 1959) in Dresden 2004 to 2012.
  • Christian Thielemann ( born 1959 ) in Dresden from 2012.

Premieres

  • Heinrich Marschner / Heribert Rau: Emperor Adolph of Nassau, January 5, 1845
  • Richard Wagner: The Flying Dutchman, January 2, 1843
  • Richard Wagner: Tannhäuser and the Singers' Contest at Wartburg, October 19, 1845
  • Carl Gottlieb Reißiger / Hans -Georg Kriete: shipwreck of the Medusa, August 16, 1846
  • Anton Rubinstein / Julius Rodenberg: Feramors, February 24, 1863
  • Wilhelm Kienzl / Alfred Godel: Urvasi, February 20, 1886
  • Felix Draeseke: Herrat, March 10, 1892
  • Eugen d' Albert: Ghismonda, November 28, 1895
  • August Bungert: Homeric world ( The Odyssey ), Teatralogie, 1898-1903
  • Ignacy Paderewski / Alfred Dossig: Manru, May 29, 1901
  • Leo Blech / Richard Batka: That was me, October 6, 1902
  • Max von Schillings / Emil Gerhäuser: Moloch, December 8, 1906
  • Ernst von Dohnányi / Victor Heindl: Aunt Simona, January 22, 1913
  • Ermanno Wolf- Ferrari / Enrico Golisciani: The Lover as a doctor, December 4, 1913
  • Eugen d' Albert / Hanns Heinz Ewers: The Dark Eyes, March 5, 1916
  • Jan Brandts -Buys / Bruno Warden / Ignaz Michael Welleminsky: The Tailor of Schönau, April 1, 1916
  • Hans Pfitzner / Ilse von Stach: the Christ Elflein ( 2nd version ), December 11, 1917
  • Hugo Kaun / Franz Rauch: The Stranger, February 23, 1920
  • Ferruccio Busoni: Doktor Faust, May 21, 1925
  • Robert Wiene (director): film adaptation of Der Rosenkavalier, January 10, 1926
  • Kurt Weill / Georg Kaiser: The protagonist, March 27, 1926
  • Paul Hindemith / Ferdinand Lion: Cardillac, November 9, 1926
  • Othmar Schoeck ( after Heinrich von Kleist ): Penthesilea, January 8, 1927
  • Richard Strauss / Hugo von Hofmannsthal: The Egyptian Helen, June 6, 1928
  • Othmar Schoeck / Philipp Otto Runge: The Fisherman and syner Fru, October 3, 1930
  • Eugen d' Albert / Charles Michael Levetzow: Mister Wu, September 29, 1932
  • Rudolf Wagner- Régeny / Caspar Neher: The favorite, February 20, 1935
  • Othmar Schoeck / Armin Rüeger: Massimilla Doni, March 2, 1937
  • Richard Mohaupt / Kurt Naue: The landlady of Pinsk, February 10, 1938
  • Heinrich Suter master: Romeo and Juliet, April 13, 1940
  • Heinrich Suter Master: The Magic Island, October 31, 1942
  • Gottfried von Einem / Luigi Malipiero: Princess Turandot, February 5, 1944
  • Joseph Haas / Ludwig Strecker the Younger: The wedding of the job, July 2, 1944
  • Tikhon Khrennikov: In the storm, June 7, 1956
  • Robert Hanell: Dorian Gray, June 9, 1962
  • Karl- Rudi Griesbach: The Black, the White and the woman, December 8, 1963
  • Karl Friedrich: Tartuffe, February 3, 1964
  • Udo Zimmermann / Johannes Bobrowski: Lewin's Mill, May 27, 1974
  • Udo Zimmermann / Peter Hacks: The owl and the flying princess, December 30, 1976
  • Rainer Kunad / Alfred Matusche: Vincent, February 22, 1979
  • Siegfried Matthus: The Lay of the Love and Death of Cornet Christoph Rilke, February 16, 1985
  • Eckehard Mayer / Ingo Zimmermann: The Golden Pot, 1989
  • Matthias Pintscher / Claus H. Henneberg: Thomas Chatterton, May 25, 1998
  • Peter Ruzicka / Peter must Bach: Celan, March 25, 2001
  • Manfred Trojahn: La grande magia 10 May, 2008

Singer / inside ( selection)

The Honorary Membership excellent artists can be found in Category: Honorary Member of the Semperoper.

  • Irene Abendroth
  • Theo Adam
  • Mathieu Meyer Ahlers
  • Bernd Aldenhoff
  • Giorgio Beruggi
  • Erna Berger
  • Kurt Böhme
  • Jenny burden -Ney
  • Robert castle
  • Rainer Büsching
  • Maria Cebotari
  • Scott Connor
  • Eduard Decarli
  • Gala El Hadidi -
  • Marie Erhard
  • Hermin Esser
  • Birgit Niethammer
  • Helena Forti
  • Brünnhild Friedland
  • Melitta Otto Alvsleben
  • René Pape
  • Hasmik Papian
  • Tino Pattiera
  • Romy Petrick
  • Christoph Pohl
  • Torsten Ralf
  • Jukka Rasilainen
  • Elizabeth Reichelt
  • Elisabeth Rethberg
  • Lorenzo giant
  • Jan- Hendrik Rootering
  • Kurt Rydl
  • Erna Sack
  • Marianne Sheikh
  • Karl scabbard sheath
  • Paul Schöffler
  • Peter Schreier
  • Wilhelmine Schröder- Devrient
  • Liesel Schuch - Ganzel
  • Clementine von Schuch - Proska
Iphigenia in Tauris (Goethe) Ferdinand Keller (painter) Gotthold Ephraim Lessing Christoph Willibald Gluck Ludwig van Beethoven Thalia (Muse) Karl Scheidemantel Hans-Joachim Frey Hans Vonk (conductor) Rienzi Ignacy Jan Paderewski Hedwig Lachmann Salome (opera) Ermanno Wolf-Ferrari Die toten Augen Intermezzo (opera) Der Rosenkavalier (1926 film) Penthesilea (opera) Stefan Zweig Die schweigsame Frau Joseph Gregor Daphne (opera) Heinrich Sutermeister Romeo und Julia Stephen Gould (tenor) Jan-Hendrik Rootering Heinz Czechowski
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