Walter Bruno Iltz

Walter Bruno Iltz
1938
Born	17 November 1886 Praust (Danzig), Prussia, Germany
Died	5 November 1965 Tegernsee, Upper Bavaria, West Germany
Occupation(s)	Stage actor Drama producer Theatre director
Spouse	Helena Forti (1884–1942)

Walter Bruno Iltz (17 November 1886 - 5 November 1965) was a German, stage actor, drama producer and theater manager.

Life

Provenance and early years

Walter Bruno Iltz was born at Praust (as Pruszcz was known before 1945), a small manufacturing town just outside Danzig/Gdańsk. In 1907, as he set off the study Chemistry at Munich, he seemed to be destined to follow his father's example and make his way in life as a pharmacist but by 1908 he had become an actor. His first recorded stage appearance took place that year at Schweidnitz in Silesia. Stage roles at the City Theatre in Zittau followed in 1909, which was followed by a longer period as a member of the company at the Lobe Theatre in Breslau/Wrocław between 1910 and 1913. There were probably also stage appearances at Detmold during this period. Sources differ as to the precise chronology of his early years as a theatre actor, however.

Dresden

Iltz worked between 1913 and 1924 at Dresden's newly built Royal Playhouse, and was still there when, several years after the abdications of the King of Saxony and the German emperor, it was renamed State Playhouse (Staatsschauspiel) for a new republican age. During his first few years at Dresden the Playhouse was under the direction of Karl Zeiss. Iltz built his skills and his reputation as a youthful character actor, while a member of a theatre company that also included Maria Fein and Theodor Becker (who becaome a husband and wife partnership). During his years at the State Playhouse, Iltz was also increasingly involved as a producer-director, but there was never any abrupt switch from acting to directing: his public reputation, even when he moved on from Dresden in 1924, was still principally as an actor. He won particular plaudit for the qualities of his speech, for instance when took the title role in Hofmannsthal's "Everyman", that of "Franz Moor" in Schiller's The Robbers, as "Ferdinand" in Intrigue and Love (also by Schiller) and in the title role of Hanns Johst's "The King". In 1920 Iltz appeared in the world premier production of Walter Hasenclever's expressionist drama "Jenseits" ("Beyond"), under the direction of Berthold Viertel and co-starring with Emanuel Raul and Alice Verden. The Dresden producution of the play, intended to "invent a new dimension and language on stage", resonated stronglty with audiences and critics. The production was sebsequently toured, first to the Landestheater in Stuttgart and then, in 1922, to the Lobe Theatre in Breslau, where Iltz had been a member of the company before the war. Iltz had by this time acquired a high profile as a stage [presence in the theatre worled. Max Brod dedicated his one-act drama "Die Höhe des Gefühls" ("The Height of Feeling") - written in 1911 and pubpished in 1913 but premiered only in 1918, at Dresden - to Iltz, whom the playwright described as "the outstanding presenter of [the star role of] Orosmin". During and after 1921, influenced by the work of Max Reinhardt, Iltz became ever more engaged with his stage directing work at the Dresden Playhouse. According to one contemporary he came across, at this time, as "youthful, fresh, energetic, determined, with rather a boyish manner". Some fellow thespians were more than bemused by his "dictatorial approach", and the trades union congress even referenced his "anti-social conduct". He was nevertherless very successful in terms of results.

Walter Bruno Iltz and Helena Forti at the time of their marriage

Helena Forti (1884–1942) was a stage soprano who arrived at the Semperoper in Dresden in 1911, a couple of years before Iltz moved to the Royal Playhouse across the river. Walter Brunoe Iltz married Helena Forti in 1917. Forti remained a member of the opera company in Dresden from 1911 till 1924, but she also appeared at other presitigious venues. On 1914 she appeared as Sieglinde in Walküre and as Kundry in Parsifal at the Bayreuth Festival. Through Helena's work at Bayreuth the couple came to know Siegfried and Winifred Wagner. In 1916 Walter Ilze's wife sang the lead role of "Myrtocle" in the premier performance of Eugen d'Albert's Die toten Augen. In 1924, however, having reached the age of 40, she retired from her performing career and worked in support of her husband's, training performers in stage acting technique behond the scenes at Gera and Düsseldorf where, between 1924 and 1937, he was employed as Theatre Director.

Gera

In 1924 Iltz took over as General Intendant (Theatre Director) at the Princely Reuß Theatre in Gera. The Reuß Theatre enjoyed a unique status during the republican years, benefitting from the protective and enthusiastic support of Prince Heinrich XLV of Reuß, to whom Iltz various assigned dramaturgist responsibilities, for which the prince was well equipped by virtue of his broad literary knowledge. The theatre was neither supported nor encumbered by municipal or state funding, but it nevertheless managed to avoid becoming an island of rich privilege. The auditorium had space for 1,100 and the recently renovated building was suitable for plays, shows, operas or operettas.

Iltz became known as a youthful modernising theatre director, open minded and enthusiastic. During his three seasons at Gera he incorporated many new dramatists into the theatre calendar. One was Ernst Barlach. Iltz himself staged Barlach's "Die gute Zeit" (1925) and "Der arme Vetter" (1927). There was an early production of Brecht's Man Equals Man. Other relatively youthful playwrights featured were Arnolt Bronnen, Walter Hasenclever, Georg Kaiser Carl Zuckmayer and Fritz von Unruh. Many plays had their world premieres at Gera under Iltz's direction. These included works by Alexander Lernet-Holenia ("Saul"), André Gide ("The prodigal's return"), Diderot ("Est-il Bon? Est-il méchant?") and Rosso di San Secondo.

For the 1925/26 season the still very young avant-garde Yvonne Georgi accepted an engagement to lead the Gera theatre's dance troupe. She opened with a dance evening comprising Felix Petyrek "Arabian suite" (featuring Georgi herself in a solo dance performance), Darius Milhaud's "Saudades do Brasil" and "Persisches Ballett" by Egon Wellesz. Georgi's innovative cheerfully comedic choreography caused a sensation across Germany, although according to at least one source the conservative locally based theatre goers of Gera mostly stayed away. On New Year's Eve at the end of 1925 there was a production of Vittorio Rieti's and Diaghilev's only recently unveiled choral-ballet "Barabau". Even critics from Berlin attended, and the production was toured both to the Leipzig Playhouse and to the Berlin People's Theatre. During 1926 Giorgi also choreographed Stravinsky's Pulcinella to widespread acclaim. Nevertheless, as 1926 drew to a close the entire dance troupe at Gera's Princely Reuß Theatre was dismissed "due to lack of public interest". Yvonne Georgi moved on to Hanover where her first evening production was of her own version of Pulcinella.

Iltz actively sought out young talent, undertaking trips across Germany in order to attend performances at small provincial theatres unannounced and normally unrecognised, on his talent spotting missions. While he was at Gera he "discovered" and recruited Hans Otto, Paul Hoffmann, Oscar Fritz Schuh and, in 1927, the young Bernhard Minetti. It was also on one of his talent scouting trips that he came across Dorothea Neff, whom many years later he engaged to work for him in a succession of leading roles at the People's Theatre in Vienna, and who would later pay tribute to Iltz's courage and steadfastness during a murderous time (after 1938).

Audience numbers at the Princely Reuß Theatre in Gera peaked under Iltz's directorship, at 240,832 for the 1925/26 season.

Düsseldorf

Between 1927 and 1937 Iltz was employed as General Intendant (Theatre Director) at the City Theater in Düsseldorf. The City Theatre was a large prestigious establishment with two autidoria, used not just for stage dramas but also for opera and operetta. Following the death of its formidable co-founder-director Louise Dumont, in 1933 the Düsseldorf Play House was forcibly placed under a compulsory lease arrangement which effectively removed control from her co-founder-director, Gustav Lindemann, who was still very much alive. But Lindemann was seen by the authorities as unreliable at best, which meant no more performances could be staged with Lindemann in charge. After the government backed "Fighters for German Culture" ("Kampfbund für deutsche Kultur") had successfully choreographed Lindemann's removal from his post, management of the Düsseldorf Play House was entrusted to Iltz, leaving him with a small portfolio of Düsseldorf theatres to manage and fill. It is impossible to consider Iltz's ten years as Theatre Director in Düsseldorf without reference to the political context. The years between 1927 and 1932 were marked by intensifying populism across Germany which was reflected in growing political polarisation in Berlin, which increasingly spilled onto the streets. With voters rejecting moderation, parliament became deadlocked and government became increasingly ineffective except where it was deemed necessary to enact legislation by "emergency decree". This situation ended in January 1933 when the Hitler government exploited the political chaos (which its supporters had done so much to generate) to take power. Germany was quickly transformed into a one-party dictatorship. During Iltz's final four years at Düsseldorf, between 1933 and 1937, the shrill racism and antisemitism which the populist leaders had used to stir up hatred and anxieties on the streets emerged as a core underpinning of government strategy. Theatres were particularly badly impacted because of the large number of theatre people whom the government identified as Jewish. The fact that many people involved in the theatre were also supporters of left-wing causes and parties attracted further unwelcome attention from government backers. Among set designers employed in theatres operating under Iltz's direction were Caspar Neher (a long-standing professional associate of the high-profile left-wing socialist Bertolt Brecht), Hein Heckroth (who displeased Germany's new political masters by refusing to divorce his Jewish wife) and Traugott Müller. The risk to Müller from the new politics were less immediately obvious, although for those who believe that World War II was caused by "Nazism" Müller was also a Hitler victim, in the sense that he was killed in an air raid against Berlin in 1944. The list of stage performers in Düsseldorf who found their livelihoods - and, as matters turned out, their lives - in danger as a result of the 1933 change of government is naturally much longer than the list of affected stage set designers. Karl Paryla, a committed Communist lost his job at Düsseldorf in 1933 and spent most of the Hitler years living and working in Switzerland. Ludwig Schmitz, despite taking the precaution of joining the party in 1937, would find himself branded in 1941 as having undertaken "unworthy conduct" by the authorities, and banned from appearing in film roles. Hanne Mertens had joined the party even sooner, in 1933, but would nevertheless find himself identified as a "fellow traveller of the party's enemies" and then, in 1944, arrested on suspicion of undermining the war effort. During the early months of 1945 Mertens was badly tortured at the concentration camp to which he had been sent at the instigation of the security services in Hamburg, and then, on 21/22/23 April 1945, killed by hanging. To these can be added Wolfgang Langhoff (who also spent many of the Hitler years in Swiss exile) and the Jewish actor Leon Askin who following the murder of his parents and himself suffering serious torture at the hands of government paramilitaries, was able to escape to the United States in 1940. Prominent musicians working under Iltz's direction for whom the National Socialists represented an obvious threat included the {foreign-born) conductor Otto Ackermann (who moved to Switzerland in 1935) and the Jewish conductor Jascha Horenstein (who like others was - eventually - granted U.S. citizenship). How Iltz navigated the twelve years of intensifying pressure to follow Nazi mantras during the Hitler years is an endlessly complex story, most of which is likely to remain for ever untold.There are nevertheless some indications that between 1927 and 1937, as General Intendant (Theatre Director) at the Düsseldorf City Theater, Iltz was able, presumably by invoking his reputation and applying careful judgment, to resist at least a little of the racist political pressure to which theatres were subjected across Germany during this period.

With the conductor Jascha Horenstein alongside, Iltz could apply his ideas for supporting Avant-garde productions from the outset. The two of them developed a superb working partnership, which enabled the City Theater to present, with its musical productions, its own unique profile comparable in its impact to that of the Kroll Opera in Berlin under Klemperer. The theater in Düsseldorf's reputation began to resinate far beyond the confines of its home region.