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Deutsche Oper Berlin
Address:
Bismarckstrasse 35
In 1945 both of Berlin's large opera
houses, the Staatsoper Unter den Linden and the Deutsches Opernhaus
in the Bismarckstrasse, laid in ruins. It is impossible for
us now to realize what theaters and music meant for the populace
of those times. The hunger for artistic stimulation, which to
a large degree surpassed the hunger for food and creature comforts,
could not be better satisfied than in the theater and, best
of all, in the music theater.
The ensembles of both opera houses were, by and large, intact,
and they found refuge in the few theaters that were only partially
destroyed. These were rapidly repaired, if only provisionally,
by the populace and even by the artists themselves.
The Staatsoper installed itself in the Admiralspalast next to
the Friedrichstrasse railway station (it is the present site
of the Metropol Theater) in which both the Staatsoper and the
Deutsches Opernhaus had found an alternative stage during the
war when it was impossible to perform in their own houses. But
the city was now divided into four sectors and there was a city
commandant who had to put his seal of approval on everything.
The Deutsches Opernhaus in the British sector was able to house
its ensemble in the Theater des Westens which had, during the
war, housed the Volksoper, an almost completely Nazi organization
propagating the principle of "Strength through Joy"
("Kraft durch Freude"). Plans for the reconstruction
of the Staatsoper Unter den Linden (known as the Lindenoper)
were given priority and the house, so rich in its traditions,
could be re- opened in 1955, two months before the Vienna Staatsoper.
In the meantime the division of Berlin into East and West sectors
had been aggravated to the point where the rebuilding of the
opera in the Bismarckstrasse took on national importance. Conceived
from the first as a second, equally important opera house for
the entire area surrounding Berlin, it became the only opera
house for the now established Federal State of Berlin (West).
A reconstruction of the Deutsches Opernhaus built in 1912 as
an historical monument was out of the question. It may have
been that the controversial acoustical characteristics of the
house, modeled on the Bayreuth Festival Theater, led to the
decision to tear down the ruins of the auditorium. The winning
design submitted to the jury was one which successfully integrated
the partially surviving stage house and the administrative and
technical buildings together with a completely new auditorium
designed by Fritz Bornemann. The "democratic" seating
arrangement without boxes (the so- called Fuhrer-Loge had not
been added to the old auditorium until 1934) retained the generous
proportions of the orchestra stalls with two balconies, rounding
these out with the fixed seating of 16 sled-like loges which
channeled the viewer's attention toward the stage without any
hint of social function. The foyers, with their vast window
areas, suggested an opera house open to the city itself in complete
contrast to the former castle-like appearance of the old auditorium
facade.
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