Ruth Berghaus
Ruth Berghaus ( born July 2, 1927 in Dresden, † January 25, 1996 in Zeuthen near Berlin) was a German choreographer, opera and theater director.
Life
Berghaus studied modern dance and dance directed Palucca in Dresden and was a master student of Wolfgang Langhoff at the German Academy of Arts in Berlin. However, they could not benefit from Langhoff's theater aesthetics; was formative for her rather the encounter with Bertolt Brecht and his theater work. From 1951 to 1964 she worked as a choreographer, inter alia, at the Deutsches Theater, at the German State Opera, the Berliner Ensemble, and also in the "Thistle ". Your interest for the Director awoke with the Trial of Lucullus by Paul Dessau at the Staatsoper Berlin in 1951, director Wolf peoples. 14 years later, they led themselves directed the Trial of Lucullus. She became famous but with the choreography of the battle scenes in Coriolanus in Brecht processing at the Berliner Ensemble in 1964.
1954 Berghaus married the composer Paul Dessau, whose works for musical theater, she directed. In 1970, she was deputy of Helene Weigel in the line of the Berliner Ensemble, whose director she was until 1977. During this time succeeded Berghaus, the BE to tear from the ideological and aesthetic solidification and retain young, unconventional forces on the house, including Heiner Müller and Einar Schleef. After concerted deposition of Ruth Berghaus by the Brecht heirs, the Central Committee of the SED and individual employees of the Berliner Ensemble this sank into the museum design of Brecht's work.
Career
Ruth Berghaus began at the Staatsoper Unter den Linden in Berlin in 1951., Where she directed several pieces. Two of her productions The Barber of Seville by Gioachino Rossini in 1968 (now performed more than 300 times ) and Pelléas et Mélisande by Claude Debussy from the year 1991 to the present are still played, (listed only about 30 times).
From 1980 to 1987 Berghaus worked at the Frankfurt Opera. There, their most important performances took place: 1980 The Magic Flute by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, 1981 - including stage - of her designed Abduction from the Seraglio, 1982 The Trojans by Hector Berlioz (stage Hans Dieter Schaal ), The Makropulos Affair by Leoš Janáček and finally Richard Wagner's Parsifal and 1985-87 Der Ring des Nibelungen. In 1992, she returned again back to the Frankfurt Opera and directed the Rosenkavalier.
They also staged in 1980 at the National Theatre Mannheim opera Elektra by Richard Strauss. This staging is to still played today. 1985 in Prague Wozzeck by Alban Berg and Cornet Christoph Rilke in Dresden by Siegfried Matthus. In 1986, she made her debut at the Vienna State Opera with the choreography of Hans Werner Henze's Orpheus (stage Schaal, conductor Ulf Schirmer). In Brussels Berghaus staged 1988 Lulu by Alban Berg and in the same year for the Vienna Festival at the Theater an der Wien Fierrabras by Franz Schubert (stage Schaal, costumes Marie -Luise Beach t, conductor Claudio Abbado ) and in Hamburg at the State Opera Tristan and Isolde by Richard Wagner (stage Schaal, costumes Beach t ). This production is up still played today. At the Opera House Zurich originated productions of Der Freischütz by Carl Maria von Weber ( conductor Nikolaus Harnoncourt ) and the Flying Dutchman. Berghaus ' last work was the acquittal of Medea by Rolf Liebermann, a world premiere at the Hamburg State Opera in 1994. The last still designed by Berghaus performance was in 1995 Die Fledermaus by Johann Strauss ( son ) in Leipzig, which realized a team of assistants in their reading.
Berghaus also worked at the Vienna Burgtheater as a director and staged here in 1991 and 1993 von Kleist 's Penthesilea The Caucasian Chalk Circle by Brecht (both with Erich Wonder as a stage ).
Ruth Berghaus was one of the few directors who tried to pass on their craft to young colleagues. So they organized in three consecutive years a " master class in opera direction " in which entrants vorinszenierten scenes from selected works.
Berghaus died in 1996 from the effects of cancer. Her grave is located on the Dorotheenstädtischer Cemetery in Berlin -Mitte.
Berghaus ' work is documented from the archive of the Academy of Arts, where it is accessible for those interested.