Berliner Ensemble
Formation | January 1949 |
---|---|
Type | Theatre group |
Location |
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Website | berliner-ensemble |
The Berliner Ensemble (German pronunciation: [bɛʁˈliːnɐ ʔãˈsãːbl̩]) is a German theatre company established by actress Helene Weigel and her husband, playwright Bertolt Brecht, in January 1949 in East Berlin. In the time after Brecht's exile, the company first worked at Wolfgang Langhoff's Deutsches Theater and in 1954 moved to the Theater am Schiffbauerdamm, built in 1892, that was open for the 1928 premiere of The Threepenny Opera (Die Dreigroschenoper).
Bertolt Brecht's Berliner Ensemble
Brecht's students Benno Besson, Egon Monk, Peter Palitzsch, and Manfred Wekwerth were given the opportunity to direct plays by Brecht that had not yet been staged. The stage designers Caspar Neher and Karl von Appen, the composers Paul Dessau and Hanns Eisler, as well as the dramaturge Elisabeth Hauptmann, were among Brecht's closest collaborators. After her husband died in 1956, Weigel continued managing the Berliner Ensemble until her death in 1971.
The Berliner Ensemble achieved success through long and meticulous rehearsals, often spanning several months. Each production was documented with a Modellbuch, or preview album, containing 600 to 800 action photographs. The scenic designer Hainer Hill was among the photographers.
Die Dreigroschenoper and Happy End premiered in Berlin in 1928 and 1929 respectively, both at the Schiffbauerdamm Theatre, but twenty years before the founding of the Berliner Ensemble. Brecht wrote no new plays for the Berliner Ensemble, but remounted previously staged plays, premiering with Mother Courage and Her Children in 1949. He also directed The Caucasian Chalk Circle, and with Erich Engel, Life of Galileo. After Brecht's death, 3 plays, The Resistible Rise of Arturo Ui, Schweik in the Second World War, and The Visions of Simone Machard, had their premieres with the Ensemble.
Post- Brechtian Berliner Ensemble
Under the management of Helene Weigel's successor
Under the new artistic management, the Berliner Ensemble changed from a state-owned theatre into a
The American director
In 2019, it was announced that an annex to Das Theater am Schiffbauerdamm would be built in autumn of that year, giving the theatre a second, fully equipped auditorium for the first time.[2]
Notable members
References
- ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 7 October 2021.
- ^ "Berliner Ensemble bekommt neue Spielstätte" [Berliner Ensemble Gets New Venue]. faz.net (in German). 21 May 2019. Retrieved 15 May 2020.
External links
- Official website (in German)