Heinrich Becker

Heinrich Becker (* 1770 in Berlin, † 1822 in Weimar ) was a German actor and director, whose family ennobled in 1861 by the name of Blumenthal was.

Life and work

Heinrich Becker came in 1770 in Berlin to the world. As a very young man he was employed at the court theater in Weimar, as it already was headed by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe. Goethe recognized his talent, appointed him director, entrusted him with some key roles in his plays and turned in all questions to him which affected his roles to be contained.

Heinrich Becker, who called himself the Weimar court theater shortly Heinrich Becker, was the first for many years an actor on the Weimar stage, and although he was best in comedic times, he played to the great satisfaction of Goethe the role of Vansen in Egmont. The main supporting roles in the plays of Friedrich Schiller, he played in the highest perfection; particularly outstanding in the roles of Burleigh in Maria Stuart, Karl Moor in The Robbers and as Antonio in Torquato Tasso.

Henry Becker and his wives

At the time of his greatest success in 1794, he married his fifteen years of successful actresses colleague Christiane Neumann. Their first daughter was born in the same year still to the world, a second died in 1796 shortly after the birth. On a guest appearance his wife fell ill in the summer of 1797 from tuberculosis. She died on September 22, 1797 at age 18.

1803 married Heinrich Becker again the nineteen year old actor colleague Amalie Malcomi, but the marriage was unhappy - to their different characters were to lead to a harmonious relationship. The spirited Amalia Becker settled a year later divorced him to marry a few months later on December 26, 1804 their older by one year only colleagues Pius Alexander Wolff, a successful pupil of Goethe. Both newly married had dropped more and more exciting successes while looking up the star of Heinrich Becker.

Leave and re- arrival in Weimar

In the spring of 1809 Becker left Weimar to Hamburg under Friedrich Ludwig Schröder, who had been in April 1791 visit to Weimar, and to play end of the year as a member of the Breslau Theatre under the direction of dispute. In Breslau he married the singer Minna Ambrosch. He remained some years in Breslau, but then led the life of a wandering actor and joined numerous traveling theaters to. In health, attacked and down on his luck, he returned in 1820 returned to Weimar, where Goethe received him cordially. After he was still two years with quite varying degrees of success on the stage, he died in 1822 in Weimar in mental derangement.