Klaus Zehelein
| Klaus Zehelein | |
|---|---|
 |
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| Born |
5 September 1940 Frankfurt, Germany |
| Residence | Berlin and Munich, Germany |
| Alma mater | Goethe University Frankfurt |
| Occupation | Dramaturge |
| Spouse(s) | Marianne Weigmann |
Klaus Zehelein (born September 5, 1940) is a German dramaturge. He was president of the Munich Bayerische Theaterakademie August Everding. Zehelein is also president of the association of German theaters, Deutscher Bühnenverein. For fifteen years, from 1991 until 2006, Zehelein was artistic director of the Staatsoper Stuttgart. Critic Gerhard Rohde, summing up Zehelein's theatre work at the Stuttgart opera, says "Zehelein does not view opera as a culinary phenomenon. For him opera is an extremely complex matter, where all arts – as well as social, philosophical, historic, utopic and other aspects – unite. This complexity of opera merits being perceived, being seen, being experienced; thus all works that end up performed on stage, are rigorously analyzed beforehand. He who says this results in thinned-out, merely sophisticated opera performances, missed out substantially in the Zehelein-Era in Stuttgart."
Zehelein studied German literature, musicology and philosophy in the Goethe University Frankfurt. Among his teachers were the philosophers Max Horkheimer and Theodor W. Adorno. Although not a composer himself, Zehelein participated in the Darmstadt International Summer Courses for New Music from 1959 to 1966. Here he met composers Luigi Nono and , which would influence Zehelein's future artistic development. Zehelein began his professional activity at the theater in Kiel in 1967, then became chief dramaturge in Oldenburg.
From 1977 to 1987 he worked at the Frankfurt opera, starting as chief dramaturge and becoming Opera director. In Frankfurt Zehelein developed a practical but intellectually supported manner of interpreting and staging opera. He worked with the stage director Hans Neuenfels on Busoni's Doktor Faust and Neuenfels' production of Aida – known as "Aida as cleaning-lady production". With the east German director Ruth Berghaus and her designer Axel Manthey, he worked on Parsifal and Wagner's Ring. Zehelein moved to Hamburg in 1989 as artistic director of the Thalia Theater before being offered the position of artistic director at the Stuttgart opera.
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