KOMISCHE OPER BERLIN - Portrait
Heidi Specker, 2023
Verlag der Buchhandlung Walther und Franz König
Pages of Komische Oper Berlin - Portrait
Since its founding in 1947, the Komische Oper Berlin has been Berlin’s opera house for music-theater that is as innovative as it is accessible. It was here that Walter Felsenstein first conceived of opera as music and theater as equal partners and implemented this concept on stage. Since then, the spirit of the Komische Oper Berlin has continued to evolve and inspire opera companies the world over.
The original building of the Komische Oper Berlin in Behrenstrasse is 130 years old. Even before World War I, in the Golden Twenties, it housed the Metropol-Theater, a legendary revue theater where stars such as Fritzi Massary and Richard Tauber performed in operettas by Emmerich Kálmán Paul Abraham and Oscar Straus. After the building was miraculously spared complete destruction in World War II, artistic director Walter Felsenstein, inspired by the Opéra Comique in Paris, founded the Komische Oper Berlin a this location on December 23rd, 1947.
The building was last renovated and extensively refurbished in the 1960s. More than half a century later, a major renovation and expansion of the Komische Oper Berlin is urgently needed. The building is being optimised for the future so that the Komische Oper Berlin’s tradition of innovative, emotional and moving musica theater can continue.
During the renovation period, the Komische Oper Berlin will be based at the Schillertheater in Charlottenburg, but also perform in other venues throughout the city. For now, however, we bid farewell to the familiar buildings in Berlin-Mitte. Heidi Specker has take a photographic portrait of the Komische Oper Berlin, creating special memento of this period in the opera’s history.
The Berlin-based photographer spent several months studying the building and the institution that is the Komische Oper Berlin. The works show moods and atmospheres that are poetic, whimsical humorous―but also unwieldy and radical.
Specker thus has captured the very essence of spaces and objects as they have been seen by staff and visitors, consciously or unconsciously, over decades―places that have been home to their creativity, to their expression and experience of theater. Specker complements these photographs with historical images from Komische Oper Berlin’s archive, adding their own perspectiv to the process of documentation.
With her loving eye ― also for the quirky and absurd ― her picture compositions and her unique curiosity for the world around her Specker offers an unusual portrait of the Komische Oper Berlin from a perspective that is as quotidian as it is extraordinary.
Susanne Moser, Philip Bröking (Co-directors of the Komische Oper Berlin)
Verlag der Buchhandlung Walther und Franz König, 2023.
Verlag der Buchhandlung Walther und Franz König, 2023.
Hrsg. von Susanne Moser, Philip Bröking.
23 x 28 cm. 156 S. Leinen. Englisch, Deutsch. ISBN 978-3-7533-0468-7
