- Walter Felsenstein
Walter Felsenstein (
30 May 1901 –8 October 1975 ) was a theater andopera director.Felsenstein was born in
Vienna and began his career at theBurgtheater in his birthcity and from 1923 to 1932 was a theater actor inLübeck ,Mannheim , andBytom , where he first worked as a director. InBasel andFreiburg im Breisgau , he became closely acquainted with the contemporary concert hall. From 1932 to 1934 he worked as an opera director inCologne , and from 1934 to 1936 atFrankfurt . He worked inZurich from 1938 to 1940 and returned in 1940 toGermany , where he was active at the BerlinSchillertheater until 1944. Additionly, he worked as a guest director inAachen ,Duesseldorf ,Metz , andStrasbourg . In 1942 he produced "Le nozze di Figaro " (Clemens Krauss conducting, sets and costumes byStefan Hlawa ) at theSalzburg Mozart festival. From 1945 to 1947 he worked at theHebbeltheater inBerlin . In 1947 he created theKomische Oper inEast Berlin , where he worked as director until his death. From 1956 on he was vice-president of theGermany Academy of Arts of theGerman Democratic Republic .He translated and edited numerous operatic works into German, including "
Carmen " (Georges Bizet , 1949) and "La traviata " (Giuseppe Verdi , 1955). Famous productions include "Die Zauberflöte " (Mozart, 1954), "Les contes d'Hoffman " (Jacques Offenbach , 1958), "Otello " (Verdi, 1959), "Barbe-bleue " (Offenbach 1961), "The Cunning Little Vixen " (Leoš Janáček , 1956), and "A Midsummer Night's Dream" (Benjamin Britten ). The foreign-language operas Felsenstein produced were not usually set in their original tongue, but in a German translation.Felsenstein was one of the most important exponents of
Regietheater , productions in which drama values came before musical ones. His most famous students wereGötz Friedrich andHarry Kupfer both of whom went on to have important careers developing Felsenstein's work.Together with the "Komische Oper" troupe he visited the
USSR a few times. In 1969 he directed theRussian language production of "Carmen " byBizet at the "Stanislavsky and Nemirovich-Danchenko Moscow Academic Music Theater" inMoscow . In Moscow it was stated that his way of the opera staging was similar to the principles ofKonstantin Stanislavsky .He was awarded the National Prize of DDR in 1950, 1951, 1956, 1960, and 1970.
Opera director
Siegfried Schoenbohm was one of his assistants.Felsenstein died at age 74 in
East Berlin . He is buried in Kloster onHiddensee , an island in theBaltic Sea .
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