Claus Helmut Drese
Claus Helmut Drese ( born December 25, 1922 in Aachen, † 10 February, 2011 Horgen, Switzerland ) was a German opera and theater director, film director and author.
Life
Claus Helmut Drese grew up in Aachen and studied in Cologne, Bonn and Marburg / Lahn 1941-1946 German literature, philosophy and history. He did his PhD on the concept of the tragic in the new German drama. In 1950 he married the photographer Helga Lautzenbrücken.
In 1946 he started on his Marburger drama theater career as a playwright, moved to the Osnabrück Theater am Domhof and 1952 at the National Theatre Mannheim. There he was at the opening of the New National Theatre in 1957 out the Festschrift, in which involved more than 100 international playwrights. From 1959 to 1963, Drese director at the Stadttheater Heidelberg.
As a director at the Staatstheater Wiesbaden (1962-1968), he led the International May Festival of Eastern European productions by inviting new meaning. In Wiesbaden, he distinguished himself as an opera director with productions of Die Frau ohne Schatten, Der Rosenkavalier and Tristan and Isolde.
From 1968 to 1975 he was general director of the stages of the city of Cologne. Here he brought in the opera, among other things, a spectacular series of Mozart productions with the conductor István Kertész and the director Jean -Pierre Ponnelle out as well as performances by the likes of Margaret Price and Lucia Popp. In the drama gained in this period, the Wallenstein trilogy, directed by Hans Günther Heyme special international attention.
Drese was from 1975 to 1986 director of the Zurich Opera House. Outstanding new productions were the productions of all known stage works by Claudio Monteverdi, whose conductor was in the sense of historical performance practice with Nikolaus Harnoncourt and Jean -Pierre Ponnelle directed. A cycle of works by Claudio Monteverdi was filmed and shown at the Vienna Festival, the Edinburgh Festival, the Berlin Festival and La Scala in Milan. During this time his efforts fell a renovation and expansion of the old Zurich city theater that were rewarded in 1982 by a positive referendum.
From 1986 to 1991 Drese was director of the Vienna State Opera. In 1984 he had been engaged for this function by the then Minister of Education Helmut Zilk. He undertook Claudio Abbado as music director and reformed the Schedule of the Vienna State Opera in the sense of a moderate Stagionesystems. Outstanding productions were here Khovanshchina by Modest Mussorgsky, Fierrabras by Franz Schubert, The distant sound of Franz Schreker, Il viaggio a Reims by Gioacchino Rossini, which have been discussed extensively in the press as well as a cycle of eight known operas by Mozart. Drese also brought the first Nikolaus Harnoncourt to conducting the Vienna State Opera, conducted a review of how public as sensational classified, at the same time partially controversial production of Mozart's Idomeneo in February 1987. While Dreses Directorate time came formative directors of musical theater at the State Opera House, including Harry Kupfer, Johannes Schaaf, Luca Ronconi, Karl -Ernst Herrmann or Jürgen Flimm. At the same time the major drivers were first committed to the State Opera, including Seiji Ozawa, Colin Davis, Sylvain Cambreling. Dreses parts of the Viennese press violently is finely finished work in Vienna was completed in 1991 by the political union of economics and director Eberhard Waechter Staatsoper. When his successor were determined by Hilde Hawlicek, the SPÖ Education Minister, Eberhard Waechter Ioan Holender and that initially many innovations Dreses made undone. After Waechter's death but these were reintroduced. So it finally came to that financial and administrative independence of the State Opera, the already Drese had proposed during his tenure.
On the occasion of his departure from Vienna Drese was made an honorary member of the Vienna State Opera. As such, he took part in the celebration of the fiftieth anniversary of the reopening of the house to the ring in November 2005.
Drese took over from 1991 to 1996 in Athens, the artistic design of the new Music Centre Megaro Mousikis and several productions.
Claus Helmut Drese had two sons and lived with his wife until his death in Switzerland. He was most recently employed as the author. His legacy as a director, dramaturg, director and author is in the archive of the Academy of Arts in Berlin.
Works
- Theatre, Theatre ... lectures, essays, comments of a director. Atlantis music -Verlag, Zurich 1984, ISBN 3-254-00109-5.
- In the Palace of feelings. Experiences and revelations of a Viennese opera director. Piper, Munich 1993, ISBN 3-492-03695-3.
- ... Intentionally or by accident ... theater and opera history ( n ) of 50 years. Dittrich, Cologne 1999, ISBN 3-920862-24-4.
- Echoes. Five artists fates. Narratives. Dittrich, Cologne 2002, ISBN 3-920862-44-9.
- Exquisite years. Encounters - experiences - Productions 2007-1932. Dittrich, Berlin 2008, ISBN 978-3-937717-97-5.
- Monsieur Simon Simon. A European life from 1894 to 1994. Narrated by Claus Helmut Drese. Dittrich, Berlin 2011, ISBN 978-3-937717-63-0.