Producer
Leopold Hoesch
Director
Christian Frey
Producer
Susanne Feikes
Genre
Culture
Broadcaster
ZDFtheaterkanal / 3sat / ZDFdokukanal
Length
1 x 30'
Editor
Olaf Frackmann
Year
2002
Theatrescapes
Theater Dessau

Dessau, the former residence of the state of Anhalt, was one of the centres of the German Enlightenment in the 18th century with its social, economic and educational projects.

During this period, Prince Leopold Friedrich Franz von Anhalt had the parks, palaces and gardens of the Dessau-Wörlitz Garden Kingdom laid out, he engaged a well-known travelling theatre company and opened the Dessau stage with a musical play.

At the beginning of the twentieth century, Hugo Junkers revolutionised aviation development: in Dessau. And finally, the Bauhaus (1919-1933) set worldwide and lasting impulses for architecture, art and design. In 1938, the Dessau Theatre was opened as a Nazi prestige project, destroyed by a bomb in 1944. In 1949 the theatre was reopened with a performance of The Magic Flute. In 1953, under the then artistic director Willy Bodenstein, the Dessau Richard Wagner Festival took place for the first time. Dessau was now regarded as the "Bayreuth of the North". Since 1993, the "Kurt Weill Festival Dessau" has been held annually in Dessau in honour of the composer Kurt Weill, who was born there.

Today, in addition to opera, operetta and musicals, the Dessau multi-arts theatre also runs drama, ballet, puppet theatre and the Anhaltische Philharmonie. With 1096 seats in the main auditorium, the Anhaltisches Theater Dessau is the largest theatre in Saxony-Anhalt. Its musical productions are internationally renowned, and in autumn 2001 the theatre gave guest performances of two operas staged by Johannes Felsenstein, artistic director since 1991, in Japan.

Theatrescapes: Theater Dessau

Dessau, the former residence of the state of Anhalt, was one of the centres of the German Enlightenment in the 18th century with its social, economic and educational projects.

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