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Max Reinhardt

This article is about the theatre director. For the publisher, see Max Reinhardt (publisher). For the radio presenter, see Max Reinhardt (radio presenter).
Max Reinhardt
Reinhardt in 1911, photograph by Nicola Perscheid
Born
Maximilian Goldmann

(1873-09-09)9 September 1873
Baden, Austria-Hungary
(present-day Baden, Austria)
Died30 October 1943(1943-10-30) (aged 70)
New York City, US
Resting placeWestchester Hills Cemetery
Occupation(s)Theatre director, theatrical producer, actor
Spouse(s)Else Heims (1910–1935; divorced; 2 children)
Helene Thimig (1935–1943; his death)
ChildrenWolfgang Reinhardt
Gottfried Reinhardt

Max Reinhardt (German: [maks ˈʁaɪnhaʁt] ; born Maximilian Goldmann; 9 September 1873 – 30 October 1943) was an Austrian-born theatre and film director, intendant, and theatrical producer. With his radically innovative and avant-garde stage productions, Reinhardt is regarded as one of the most prominent stage directors of the early 20th century.

For example, Reinhardt's 1917 stage premiere of Reinhard Sorge's Kleist Prize-winning stage play Der Bettler almost single-handedly gave birth to Expressionism in the theatre and ultimately in motion pictures as well. In 1920, Reinhardt established the Salzburg Festival by directing an open air production of Hugo von Hofmannsthal's acclaimed adaptation of the Everyman Medieval mystery play in the square before the Cathedral with the Alps as a background. This remains an annual custom at the Salzburg Festival to this day.

Toby Cole and Helen Krich Chinoy have dubbed Reinhardt, "one of the most picturesque actor-directors of modern times", and write that his eventual arrival in the United States as a refugee from the imminent Nazi takeover of Austria followed a long and distinguished career, "inspired by the example of social participation in the ancient Greek and Medieval theatres", of seeking, "to bridge the separation between actors and audiences".[1]

In 1935, Reinhardt directed his first and only motion picture in the United States through Warner Brothers, the Expressionist film adaptation of William Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream, starring Mickey Rooney, Olivia De Havilland, and James Cagney. The film was banned by the Ministry of Propaganda in an infamous example of censorship in Nazi Germany. This was due not only to Joseph Goebbels' belief that Expressionism was degenerate art, but even more so due to the Jewish ancestry of director Max Reinhardt, Classical music composer Felix Mendelsohn, and soundtrack arranger Erich Wolfgang Korngold; whose work was already banned by Goebbels as allegedly degenerate music.[2]

Reinhardt also founded the highly influential drama schools Hochschule für Schauspielkunst "Ernst Busch" in Berlin, Max Reinhardt Seminar, the Max Reinhardt Workshop (Sunset Boulevard),[3] and the Max Reinhardt Junior Workshop. Even though Reinhardt did not live long enough to witness the end of Nazism in 1945, his formerly expropriated estate at Schloss Leopoldskron near Salzburg was restored to his widow and his legacy continues to be celebrated and honoured in the modern Germanosphere for his many radically innovative contributions to the performing arts.

  1. ^ Edited by Toby Cole and Helen Krich Chinoy (1970), Actors on Acting: The Theories, Techniques, and Practices of the World's Great Actors, Told in Their Own Words, Crown Publishers. Page 294.
  2. ^ "Max Reinhardt - music, theatre, circus". Forbidden Music. 18 August 2013. Retrieved 14 October 2023.
  3. ^ "Max Reinhardt". Britannica .com. 5 September 2023. Retrieved 14 October 2023.

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