''The Adventure of the Curtain''
Photo © from ''L'avventura del sipario'', courtesy of Ubulibri
Paul Oertel (1859-1897)
Sketch of the curtain for the celebration of 25°anniverary of proclamation to emperor of Guglielmo I (1896)
Kassel, Königliches Theater
Distemper on paper, 35,7 x 55,8 cm
Cologne, Institut für Theaterwissenschaft der Universität
The text of Morpurgo was used often, in scenography ...
Sketch of the curtain for the celebration of 25°anniverary of proclamation to emperor of Guglielmo I (1896)
Kassel, Königliches Theater
Distemper on paper, 35,7 x 55,8 cm
Cologne, Institut für Theaterwissenschaft der Universität
The text of Morpurgo was used often, in scenography ...
Photo © Luigi Ciminaghi / Piccolo Teatro di Milano
... as an iconographic source.
Known examples are those referring to Josef Svoboda.
When Giorgio Strehler asked him (Lettera a Joseph Svoboda, 1990) to insert a painted curtain in the scenography of his Piccolo Teatro, ''Faust, fragments'', Svoboda chose this as model.
Known examples are those referring to Josef Svoboda.
When Giorgio Strehler asked him (Lettera a Joseph Svoboda, 1990) to insert a painted curtain in the scenography of his Piccolo Teatro, ''Faust, fragments'', Svoboda chose this as model.
Photo © from ''L'avventura del sipario'', courtesy of Ubulibri
Atelier Julius Mühldorfer (acting 1890-1954)
Sketch of the most important curtain (1904)
Lübeck, Stadttheater
Tempera on paper, 40 x 56,5 cm
Cologne, Institut für Theaterwissenschaft der Universität
This is the model of the curtain that Josef Svoboda made to paint on the floor that, reflected in a giant mirror, opened the famous installation of La traviata ...
Sketch of the most important curtain (1904)
Lübeck, Stadttheater
Tempera on paper, 40 x 56,5 cm
Cologne, Institut für Theaterwissenschaft der Universität
This is the model of the curtain that Josef Svoboda made to paint on the floor that, reflected in a giant mirror, opened the famous installation of La traviata ...
Photo © Alfredo Tabocchini / Arena Sferisterio di Macerata
... realized in 1992 by Arena Sferisterio of Macerata.
Once more, the idea had been suggested by Strehler, as the director Henning Brockhaus remembers in a interview of great interest contained in the text that collects essays and testimonials about the important experience of the Bohemian Master in Macerata at the beginning of the 1990s:
Massimo Puliani, Alessandro Forlani, Svobodamagika. Polivisioni sceniche di Josef Svoboda, Halley Editrice, 2006.
Once more, the idea had been suggested by Strehler, as the director Henning Brockhaus remembers in a interview of great interest contained in the text that collects essays and testimonials about the important experience of the Bohemian Master in Macerata at the beginning of the 1990s:
Massimo Puliani, Alessandro Forlani, Svobodamagika. Polivisioni sceniche di Josef Svoboda, Halley Editrice, 2006.
Photo © from ''L'avventura del sipario'', courtesy of Ubulibri
Otto Miller-Godesberg (?)
Sketch of the main curtain (1905)
Barmen, Stadttheater
Distemper on paper, 54,8 x 79,7 cm
Cologne, Institut für Theaterwissenschaft der Universität
«A magniloquent and absurd curtain, painted and luxurious metaphor of theatrically and illusionistic fiction of the bourgeois home. At one time a break on the theatre, the tent of the Sheikh and a drapery that is an end in itself.»
This quote and the following are taken from:
Valerio Morpurgo, ''The Adventure of the Curtain'' - Figurazione e metafora di una macchina teatrale, Ubulibri, 1984.
Sketch of the main curtain (1905)
Barmen, Stadttheater
Distemper on paper, 54,8 x 79,7 cm
Cologne, Institut für Theaterwissenschaft der Universität
«A magniloquent and absurd curtain, painted and luxurious metaphor of theatrically and illusionistic fiction of the bourgeois home. At one time a break on the theatre, the tent of the Sheikh and a drapery that is an end in itself.»
This quote and the following are taken from:
Valerio Morpurgo, ''The Adventure of the Curtain'' - Figurazione e metafora di una macchina teatrale, Ubulibri, 1984.
Photo © from ''L'avventura del sipario'', courtesy of Ubulibri
Angelo Quaglio (1829-1890)
Sketch for a curtain (around 1870)
Water-colour on paper, 27,9 x 37,3 cm
Cologne, Institut für Theaterwissenschaft der Universität
«Angelo Quaglio belonged to a artists family, it is native to Lake Como and active in Germany since the beginning of the seventeenth century, which gave to the theatre scenographers and architects.»
Sketch for a curtain (around 1870)
Water-colour on paper, 27,9 x 37,3 cm
Cologne, Institut für Theaterwissenschaft der Universität
«Angelo Quaglio belonged to a artists family, it is native to Lake Como and active in Germany since the beginning of the seventeenth century, which gave to the theatre scenographers and architects.»
Photo © from ''L'avventura del sipario'', courtesy of Ubulibri
Napoleon Sacchetti (?)
Sketch for a curtain (end of XIX Century)
Mixed technique on paper, 39,2 x 50 cm
Paris, Bibliothèque Nationale, Musée de l'Opéra
«During the period between the end of the nineteenth century and the beginning of the first World War, becomes popular the new model of bourgeois theatre with redundant space, advanced technologies, excessive decorations that in the Opéra of Paris an ''exemplum'' to make obligatory reference.»
Sketch for a curtain (end of XIX Century)
Mixed technique on paper, 39,2 x 50 cm
Paris, Bibliothèque Nationale, Musée de l'Opéra
«During the period between the end of the nineteenth century and the beginning of the first World War, becomes popular the new model of bourgeois theatre with redundant space, advanced technologies, excessive decorations that in the Opéra of Paris an ''exemplum'' to make obligatory reference.»
Photo © from ''L'avventura del sipario'', courtesy of Ubulibri
Philippe Chaperon (1823-1906)
Sketch for a curtain (end of XIX Secolo)
Éden-Théâtre
Mixed technique on paper, 38,4 x 41,5 cm
Paris, Bibliothèque Nationale, Musée de l'Opéra
Sketch for a curtain (end of XIX Secolo)
Éden-Théâtre
Mixed technique on paper, 38,4 x 41,5 cm
Paris, Bibliothèque Nationale, Musée de l'Opéra
Photo © from ''L'avventura del sipario'', courtesy of Ubulibri
Max Littmann (1862 - 1931)
Prinzregententheater. Ansicht Gegen die Bühne
Stage of the Prinzregententheater of Munich (1900)
Pencil drawing on heliographed tracing paper, 49 x 62,7 cm
«The Wagnerian principles were accepted with delayed by some new Germans theatres.
Max Littmann shared them and his first theatre was really designed to be a sort of Wagnerian Festspielhaus: the Prinzregenten-Theater of Munich.
The great simplification of the auditorium that hits in the various typologies is corresponding to the more radical simplification of the stage in the Appia and Craig projects.»
Nikolaus Pevsner, A History of Building Types, Washington, 1976.
Prinzregententheater. Ansicht Gegen die Bühne
Stage of the Prinzregententheater of Munich (1900)
Pencil drawing on heliographed tracing paper, 49 x 62,7 cm
«The Wagnerian principles were accepted with delayed by some new Germans theatres.
Max Littmann shared them and his first theatre was really designed to be a sort of Wagnerian Festspielhaus: the Prinzregenten-Theater of Munich.
The great simplification of the auditorium that hits in the various typologies is corresponding to the more radical simplification of the stage in the Appia and Craig projects.»
Nikolaus Pevsner, A History of Building Types, Washington, 1976.
Photo © from ''L'avventura del sipario'', courtesy of Ubulibri
Max Littmann (1862 - 1931)
Münchner Künstlertheater Proscenium
Proscenium of the Künstlertheater of Munich (1907)
Pencil drawing on heliographed tracing paper and painted with water-colours by hand, 40 x 60 cm
Munich, Deutsches Theatermuseum, previously Clara-Ziegler-Stiftung
The works at the beginning of twentieth century «... are characterized by the attention and care to detail and to the different typologies of curtains with directions and suggestions to the client. Very important is the appearance of the curtain as manufactured article ...»
Münchner Künstlertheater Proscenium
Proscenium of the Künstlertheater of Munich (1907)
Pencil drawing on heliographed tracing paper and painted with water-colours by hand, 40 x 60 cm
Munich, Deutsches Theatermuseum, previously Clara-Ziegler-Stiftung
The works at the beginning of twentieth century «... are characterized by the attention and care to detail and to the different typologies of curtains with directions and suggestions to the client. Very important is the appearance of the curtain as manufactured article ...»
Photo © from ''L'avventura del sipario'', courtesy of Ubulibri
Max Littmann (1862 - 1931)
Münchner Künstlertheater Zuschauerraum mit Blick auf die Bühne
Stage of Künstlertheater of Munich (1908)
Photographic reproduction, 24 x 26 cm
Munich, Deutsches Theatermuseum, previously Clara-Ziegler-Stiftung
«... to be realized as specified trimmings, decorative elements and Fringes, arrhythmically placed, prefigured in the project.
Completed, harmonically balanced and not at all redundant is the project of the Künstlertheater, closer to Werkbund and at the same Van de Velde.»
Münchner Künstlertheater Zuschauerraum mit Blick auf die Bühne
Stage of Künstlertheater of Munich (1908)
Photographic reproduction, 24 x 26 cm
Munich, Deutsches Theatermuseum, previously Clara-Ziegler-Stiftung
«... to be realized as specified trimmings, decorative elements and Fringes, arrhythmically placed, prefigured in the project.
Completed, harmonically balanced and not at all redundant is the project of the Künstlertheater, closer to Werkbund and at the same Van de Velde.»
Photo © from ''L'avventura del sipario'', courtesy of Ubulibri
Max Ernst Merkel (? - 1944)
Sketch of a curtain (1908)
Lübeck, Stadttheater
Distemper on paper, 45,4 x 53,5 cm
Cologne, Institut für Theaterwissenschaft der Universität
Example of a Jugendstil curtain.
«The curtain was not always been an essential element of the show: has had its birth, its history, even a decline, and perhaps a resurrection.
Moreover, the heavy curtain made of red velvet to which we are now accustomed is only one of its forms: for centuries, painted and decorated in a thousand ways, sumptuous or linear, baroque or neoclassical, liberty or symbolist, it was the meeting point between the history of art and theatre.»
Sketch of a curtain (1908)
Lübeck, Stadttheater
Distemper on paper, 45,4 x 53,5 cm
Cologne, Institut für Theaterwissenschaft der Universität
Example of a Jugendstil curtain.
«The curtain was not always been an essential element of the show: has had its birth, its history, even a decline, and perhaps a resurrection.
Moreover, the heavy curtain made of red velvet to which we are now accustomed is only one of its forms: for centuries, painted and decorated in a thousand ways, sumptuous or linear, baroque or neoclassical, liberty or symbolist, it was the meeting point between the history of art and theatre.»
Photo © from ''L'avventura del sipario'', courtesy of Ubulibri
Atelier Franz Gruber (acting in Hamburg 1888-1930)
Sketch for main curtain (around 1905)
Indian ink, distemper on paper, 49,2 x 49,7 cm
Cologne, Institut für Theaterwissenschaft der Universität
Example of a Jugendstil curtain.
«On the other hand, as we have seen in recent developments, after Mejerchol'd and Brecht, the curtain is perhaps rather than a barrier, a link between stage and pit: they're revive, transform itself (or die) whenever you questions about the relationship between actor and spectator, to assume in its role the of separation between real and imaginary, between everyday life and representation, the value of metaphor.»
Sketch for main curtain (around 1905)
Indian ink, distemper on paper, 49,2 x 49,7 cm
Cologne, Institut für Theaterwissenschaft der Universität
Example of a Jugendstil curtain.
«On the other hand, as we have seen in recent developments, after Mejerchol'd and Brecht, the curtain is perhaps rather than a barrier, a link between stage and pit: they're revive, transform itself (or die) whenever you questions about the relationship between actor and spectator, to assume in its role the of separation between real and imaginary, between everyday life and representation, the value of metaphor.»
Photo © from ''L'avventura del sipario'', courtesy of Ubulibri
Carl Keller (?)
Sketch for the curtain (1907)
Kiel, Kleines Theater
Tempera on paper, 29 x 44,9 cm
Cologne, Institut für Theaterwissenschaft der Universität
Example of a Jugendstil curtain.
Sketch for the curtain (1907)
Kiel, Kleines Theater
Tempera on paper, 29 x 44,9 cm
Cologne, Institut für Theaterwissenschaft der Universität
Example of a Jugendstil curtain.
Photo © from ''L'avventura del sipario'', courtesy of Ubulibri
Interior with curtain (1905-1906)
Deutsches Theater of Berlin
Photographic reproduction
Munich, Deutsches Theatermuseum, previously Clara-Ziegler-Stiftung
Eexample of Jugendstil curtain.
Deutsches Theater of Berlin
Photographic reproduction
Munich, Deutsches Theatermuseum, previously Clara-Ziegler-Stiftung
Eexample of Jugendstil curtain.
Photo © from ''L'avventura del sipario'', courtesy of Ubulibri
Max Littmann (1862-1931)
Landestheater Neustrelitz (1925)
Drawing with pencil on heliographed tracing paper, 44 x 54 cm
Munich, Deutsches Theatermuseum, previously Clara-Ziegler-Stiftung
Littmann was a German architect very active in the production of theatres in Germany between the end of 800 and the first decades of the last century.
The result is that many projects that illustrate, in detail and technique-explicative notes, as sophisticated and accurate were already the design and manufacture of curtains.
For this Austrian curtain, Littmann had designed a drapery with very large tails and softly falling of a great effect.
Landestheater Neustrelitz (1925)
Drawing with pencil on heliographed tracing paper, 44 x 54 cm
Munich, Deutsches Theatermuseum, previously Clara-Ziegler-Stiftung
Littmann was a German architect very active in the production of theatres in Germany between the end of 800 and the first decades of the last century.
The result is that many projects that illustrate, in detail and technique-explicative notes, as sophisticated and accurate were already the design and manufacture of curtains.
For this Austrian curtain, Littmann had designed a drapery with very large tails and softly falling of a great effect.
Photo © from ''L'avventura del sipario'', courtesy of Ubulibri
Boris Michajlovič Kustodiev (1878-1927)
Sketch of curtain for Blocha by Evgenij I. Zamjatin (1926)
Pencil, water-colour on paper, 60 x 97 cm
Moscow, Bakhrushin Museum
Example of Russian symbolist Curtain, «... this curtain for a humorous comedy taken from a narration by Nikolai S. Leskov represents the Russian province with stylizations and ways typical of popular stories.
By painter Kustodiev are famous the portraits of opulent merchants at the tea table reflecting the changes brought in society by the Soviet NEP.
Blocha was represented at Leningrad's Bol'šoj Dramatičeskij Teatr at Mchat of Moscow.»
Sketch of curtain for Blocha by Evgenij I. Zamjatin (1926)
Pencil, water-colour on paper, 60 x 97 cm
Moscow, Bakhrushin Museum
Example of Russian symbolist Curtain, «... this curtain for a humorous comedy taken from a narration by Nikolai S. Leskov represents the Russian province with stylizations and ways typical of popular stories.
By painter Kustodiev are famous the portraits of opulent merchants at the tea table reflecting the changes brought in society by the Soviet NEP.
Blocha was represented at Leningrad's Bol'šoj Dramatičeskij Teatr at Mchat of Moscow.»
Photo © from ''L'avventura del sipario'', courtesy of Ubulibri
Anatolij Gel'cer, (1852-1918)
Sketch of the curtain (end XIX - beginning of the XX century)
Malyj Teatr of Petersburg
Gouache on paper applied on cardboard, 29,7 x 47 cm
Moscow, Bakhrushin Museum
«Set designer of Malyj Teatr since 1888, Gel'cer installed pompous stagings of Shakespeare and Schiller tragedies, which was the interpreter the renowned Mary Ermolova.
The rich wings formed the characteristic of its scenes and its curtains. Ge'lcer is the last representative of the Russian romantic scenography of the nineteenth Century.»
Sketch of the curtain (end XIX - beginning of the XX century)
Malyj Teatr of Petersburg
Gouache on paper applied on cardboard, 29,7 x 47 cm
Moscow, Bakhrushin Museum
«Set designer of Malyj Teatr since 1888, Gel'cer installed pompous stagings of Shakespeare and Schiller tragedies, which was the interpreter the renowned Mary Ermolova.
The rich wings formed the characteristic of its scenes and its curtains. Ge'lcer is the last representative of the Russian romantic scenography of the nineteenth Century.»
Photo © from ''L'avventura del sipario'', courtesy of Ubulibri
F. Navrozov (?)
Sketch of a curtain (1894)
Unknown theatre
Water-colour, gouache on coloured cardboard, 16 x 26,3 cm
Moscow, Bakhrushin Museum
Proposal for a curtain into two parts in neobarocco style.
Sketch of a curtain (1894)
Unknown theatre
Water-colour, gouache on coloured cardboard, 16 x 26,3 cm
Moscow, Bakhrushin Museum
Proposal for a curtain into two parts in neobarocco style.