100 years of Göttingen International Handel Festival
From a local amateur performance
to a professional festival with an international presence.
100 years of eventful history.
It all started in 1920 in Göttingen...
At the beginning of the 20th century, Göttingen was a city with around 40,000 residents:
a medium-sized Prussian city shaped by its administration, the university,
the garrison, and a relatively high percentage of people
who came to Göttingen to retire.
It was more a city of the middle class –
or rather a city dominated by the middle class, with few working-class people,
and a nationalist-conservative cultural and political environment.
After the First World War,
Göttingen was in a similar situation to a number of other cities.
There was a need to catch up on cultural things,
on leisure, on concerts.
So there was this parallel development
of conservative elements and, at the same time, of cultural awakening.
After his death, Handel’s operas were almost completely forgotten,
and in 1920, there was this initiative to perform Rodelinda here in Göttingen.
That sparked a lot of interest amongst people
who were interested in this repertoire.
Since then, the operas have once again been an integral part of the repertoire.
Handel is one of the most-performed opera composers
around the world today –
and that is all thanks to the ‘Göttingen Handel Renaissance’.
One of the leading figures in the first performance of Rodelinde was
Oskar Hagen, who was actually an art historian,
and who worked as a lecturer here in the art history department.
At the same time, Oskar Hagen was the conductor of the Akademische Orchestervereinigung.
And with this amateur orchestra
he had already started to practise Handel arias now and again
as his wife, Thyra Hagen-Leisner, was a soprano.
She was the first Rodelinda.
Thyra Hagen-Leisner was an amateur singer, it’s fair to say.
Her sister was a famous singer – Emmi Leisner.
And the other musicians were more or less amateur musicians,
some of them were
what we would call semi-professional musicians today.
But, of course, there were also several professionals in there too.
Oskar Hagen conducted the orchestra
and with it, he held the first Handel Festival.
So the orchestra for the first Festival in 1920 was the Akademische Orchestervereinigung.
They were a very dedicated, very enthusiastic bunch,
they really gave it everything they had
for the first Handel Festival; for weeks
they practised for a huge number of hours, they put all their free time into it.
That means, they were very, very motivated,
to achieve something for which they received no payment.
Oskar Hagen was not, of course, working in a vacuum,
he had a lot of supporters.
One that has to be mentioned here is the Göttingen Universitätsbund (University Association).
The Universitätsbund was a tool that the university had established
to support itself after the end of the First World War.
And the important thing about the Universitätsbund was that
the university community and the city community came into contact there.
When you look at the list of members from those early years,
it’s like a ‘who’s who’ of Göttingen.
Amongst the members were the former mayor,
mayor Calsow was president of the Universitätsbund.
That connection wasn’t a negative one, because it led to
Rodelinde being performed in the town’s theatre.
The theatre acquired costumes
and especially props and backdrops
and made everything available to them.
So besides this amateur commitment
these elements of professional theatre again come into play.
At the same time, the Universitätsbund had an annual general meeting
and the highlight of that was the performance of Rodelinde,
so the audience was actually already there.
It was an adaptation, it was adapted quite considerably,
Oskar Hagen had shortened it, changed it around,
had made major dramaturgical changes.
It was also a performance that was very expressionistic.
The stage design was by Paul Thiersch,
and it was a stage design that was not baroque,
but instead very expressionistic.
Naturally, there were a number of other people who helped Oskar Hagen,
not only from a financial perspective,
but also from organisational and artistic perspectives.
And this Rodelinde was so successful
that it was performed over 100 times in over 20 different theatres
in the period that followed.
One of the main reasons was
that people were fascinated by this adaptation,
and by the German version of the text by Oskar Hagen.
But it also had something to do with
the fact that after the First World War
the ensembles of the opera houses had naturally become much smaller
and there was a search for a new repertoire
with a small orchestra, and a small choir
because with the casualties in the First World War,
they had become very much restricted.
1920 was a very interesting year, actually:
it was the Weimar Republic,
but the First World War hadn’t been over that long.
And most importantly, the First World War
ended with the Treaty of Versailles,
in which the Germans were given the sole blame for the First World War.
In many circles – and especially in middle-class circles –
this led in Germany
to it being seen as very unfair and humiliating.
In turn, that led conversely –
in these middle-class circles –
to the emergence of very strong nationalism.
And there was an attempt to transfer that to art and culture.
So there was this search going on everywhere:
Where are the original Germans?
Where can Germanic roots be found?
Things that these people could,
so to say, ascribe to the German nation.
The rediscovery of Handel’s operas and the performance of
Rodelinde in German
fitted in very well there.
So it is actually also something that reflects this period –
the rediscovery of Handel as a German composer.
He was, after all, born in Halle on the Saale river,
although he had lived in England for 49 years,
and had been a British citizen for 30 years.
But that didn’t matter,
Handel was reclaimed as a German.
In the ’20s, there were personnel changes.
In 1924, Oskar Hagen was offered a professorship in America, a professorship he accepted.
A couple of years later, Alfred Bertholet also went to America.
He had organised the Festival until then.
And to enable the Handel Festival to continue
the goal was to establish a society.
This occurred in 1931.
The first important result of which was the performance of an opera in 1935 –
Partenope.
In 1922, for the third Handel Festival,
Hans Niedecken-Gebhardt was appointed director.
Hans Niedecken-Gebhardt had a very interesting life,
as he was one of the few homosexual artists
who managed to survive under the Nazis,
and even managed to have a successful career.
Hans Niedecken-Gebhardt was a director whose
favoured form of expression was expressive dance.
He could use that well in Handel’s operas, on the one hand.
On the other hand,
it also fitted perfectly with the tastes of the Nazis.
Hans Niedecken-Gebhardt was one of the directors
of the Olympic Games in Berlin.
Very quickly, Göttingen became a Nazi-friendly city.
There was no recognisable popular resistance movement.
There were several significant attempts to bring the Handel Society – the Händel-Gesellschaft –
into line by the Nazis.
Then, under the leadership of Meyerhoff, the Handel Society
by bringing itself into line with the regime.
That is, important local Nazi figures were knowingly made part of the Executive Board
and with that, a certain independence could be maintained.
But the bottom line is – it was a pact with the devil.
During the Second World War, the Handel Festival
continued to take place in a limited form.
The concerts were held in the University’s Great Hall – the Aula,
and in the programme announcements, the public was always asked to be on time,
so they could darken the lights in good time.
Fritz Lehmann was a famous conductor in Germany.
He had been the Artistic Director of the Handel Festival since 1934 –
a position he held until his death in 1956.
Walter Meyerhoff was, for a number of decades,
the central figure in the Handel Society.
He did an enormous amount for the development
and success of the Handel Society and the Handel Festival.
He became involved with the Nazis in order to save the Society.
One result of the Society aligning itself with the Nazis
was the removal of the Jewish members from the Society
and from its executive board, like Wolfgang Stechow for instance,
who were removed from the board.
After the Second World War, things just carried on
with the same personnel.
Hans Niedecken-Gebhardt remained the director,
Fritz Lehmann remained the highly-regarded conductor.
The involvement, at least of Niedecken-Gebhardt,
with the Nazis
was not addressed.
Of course it wasn’t addressed –
it was not addressed anywhere in Germany.
The history of the Handel Festival shows this very clearly –
that an attempt was made
to withdraw into this ostensibly apolitical music.
The first opera to be performed after the Second World War
was Arianna.
Everyone involved had been
eager to perform it since 1939,
because everything was ready and waiting.
But as the Second World War had started
they had to wait until it was over.
So it was first performed in early 1946.
This ‘let’s not address the past’,
when one thinks about Fritz Lehmann who joined the Nazi party in 1937,
and that Wolfgang Stechow was pushed out,
and who had to emigrate
because he had Jewish grandparents:
well, they were all issues that no one looked at too closely,
and that was – as it was everywhere in Germany –,
gladly swept under the carpet.
1953 was the highlight up until then –
the 30th anniversary celebrations of the Handel Festival
under der aegis of the trio
Hans Niedecken-Gebhardt, Fritz Lehmann and Walter Meyerhoff.
Unfortunately, it wasn’t possible to celebrate the anniversary in 1950
because the City of Göttingen had to withdraw funding that year.
When the anniversary was finally held in 1953,
it was also a goodbye of sorts,
as Niedecken-Gebhardt died
and soon after him, Fritz Lehmann too.
stayed on with the Handel Festival.
And from 1953 on, Mr Ludwig Doormann directed the Festival.
had grown very quickly in a short period.
Through refugees and displaced persons, it had grown from 50,000 to 80,000 residents.
The political culture remained heavily influenced by nationalist-conservative ideas for a long time.
There were very strong neo-Nazi tendencies,
there were also protests against them,
there was resistance against them,
which for the most part came out of the university.
And there was a flourishing, vibrant cultural scene,
at the Deutsches Theater under Hilpert, and the Junges Theater was formed,
so it really was an interesting hotchpotch.
Following the anniversary in 1953,
Göttingen cantor Ludwig Doormann
directed the Festival.
He moved the focus to Handel's sacred music,
and the oratorios in particular.
He did that until 1959,
when Günther Weißenborn took over the aegis of the Handel Society,
and became Artistic Director.
The year 1959 was the 200th anniversary of Handel’s birth,
and the Bremer Ensemble performed the opera Ariodante.
It was the last time that
Ludwig Doormann organised the Handel Festival.
He was followed by Günther Weißenborn –
he directed the Festival until 1980.
He brought a new spirit to the Festival –
oratorios were still performed, but they were semi-staged.
Initially the public didn’t like it
and there was an outcry in the press,
because people were looking forward to operas.
But gradually the public started to warm to the oratorios.
Göttingen in the ’60s was a city
that was growing very quickly.
The university had made a giant leap
from around 5,000 students in the ’50s
to over 10,000 to 15,000 students in the ’60s.
An architectural symbol of this development into a large city
was the town’s theatre – the Stadthalle, which opened in 1964.
It was, in a way, the symbol of the new Göttingen.
One era that I find particularly interesting is the era under Günther Weißenborn.
As director of the theatre orchestra, amongst other things, he ensured
that the Göttinger Symphonie Orchester would be around today.
Because back then, the opera section was to be closed.
Heinz Hilpert promised to bring a renowned theatre institution here.
And he did that, he kept his promise.
But he had also said:
‘I need all of the theatre’s money for the ensemble.’
And Günther Weißenborn pushed for
the theatre orchestra to be transformed
into the Göttinger Symphonie Orchester, which still exists.
Günther Weißenborn was also a very renowned piano accompanist.
He had accompanied big names like Hermann Prey and Fischer-Dieskau.
He used these contacts and brought the people here.
There were people here like Marilyn Horne,
who had also sung at the Metropolitan Opera in New York,
and also Fischer-Dieskau, Hermann Prey, Agnes Giebel,
and many more who sang here.
That was a major period for radio recordings,
which we still have in the archives today:
with Gottlob Frick or Alfred Deller – one of the pioneering countertenors –,
but also a time of great composers.
Immediately afterwards, a great transformation came:
the transformation with John Eliot Gardiner.
He favoured historical performance practice:
playing on historical instruments,
historically-informed interpretations,
looking closely at original sources.
That hadn’t played such a role in Weißenborn’s era.
But with John Eliot Gardiner, this historical performance practice came
to the orchestra, to the stage.
Later, with Nicholas McGegan, it also came to the stage,
with historical movements, historical dance.
It was a movement that has been extremely influential.
‘The English Baroque Soloists’.
It was the earliest baroque orchestra that he formed,
and he had already been extremely successful with it.
They played on historical instruments,
were experienced with them,
and, in particular, he made a lot of changes to performance practice.
For Göttingen, then, that was a transformation,
and a completely new era,
because the Festival became, through him, significantly more professional.
It was different from an organisational perspective,
and especially from a musical perspective.
The ideal of faithfulness to the original is something very modern.
It means that the performance should correspond to the work,
that one aims to perform the most authentic, truest possible version of the original.
It means that the performer ultimately subordinates himself to the original,
rather than doing something creative or somehow adding something to it.
But that depends on how one understands the original
where one can actually find the original,
and how one defines what it is to be faithful to the original.
It really is a difficult category,
that cannot be unequivocally pinned down.
There is the author with his intention,
there are the music scores that he left behind,
there are the whole circumstances, the time period, the performance practice,
the customs and habits, the listening experience of the audiences,
the spaces in which the music was performed.
All this can be taken into account when one wants to remain as faithful to the original as possible.
This means, it is an ideal that one tries to get close to.
Gardiner was a very strict conductor.
And sometimes that led to, such as after an oratorio,
the public throwing themselves at his feet in jubilation,
but he sent the singers to bed and the soloists,
because he was not satisfied with the performance,
and the after-party didn’t happen.
In his time, you could say that such things happened now and again.
You can see from that just how intense Gardiner was in his métier.
I think that during the ten years he was Artistic Director,
we only performed one fully-staged opera:
Tamerlano in 1985.
Musically it was fantastic, with an outstanding cast:
Derek Ragin and Michael Chance, who were both countertenors,
Nancy Argenta –that was truly a magnificent experience.
And you can see by the fact that I still remember the names
that it left its mark and is firmly planted.
Since the ’80s, there have only been Anglo-Saxon conductors.
John Eliot Gardiner, first,
then Nicholas McGegan, and now Laurence Cummings –
there has been a British dynasty here at the Handel Festival,
which continues today.
But it will soon come to an end with the arrival of a Greek director.
So the era of the trio Gardiner, McGegan and Cummings
will soon end.
Who knows how European. how international, it will be in the future,
but it was, in any case, an important step in the 1980s.
Before that, the Festival was very much a family affair,
the artists stayed with those who lived in Göttingen,
and friendships developed.
In the Gardiner era, this fell by the wayside
which, by the way, was upsetting for some people in Göttingen – and rightly so.
Because while it became more professional,
it also became a little more anonymous through that.
But the quality was outstanding.
What one has to say, as well,
was that the collapse of the Berlin Wall, at least in the history of the Handel Festival,
probably did not play such a major role.
Handel was always important – in the East and in the West.
The Handel Festival in Halle
was established shortly after the one in Göttingen.
So, these two Handel Festivals
developed in the East and in the West.
There were always relationships, so there was always this exchange with one another.
I went over there every year,
it was always difficult crossing the border.
It always took a bit of time,
but – and this is interesting to know –
it became increasing relaxed over the years.
As early as ’87, you noticed that something was changing.
On top of that, at the border at Gerblingerode,
they had got to know who we were by then.
It was actually illegal, when you went over,
to take music scores, records – I don’t think CDs existed back then –
or also publications.
But we always had those sorts of things as gifts
for the Executive Board of the Handel Society in Halle.
I always put them on the passenger seat, out in the open,
and they didn’t even look at them.
There could’ve been a newspaper in there somewhere too,
it wouldn’t have attracted any attention.
So you noticed that something was changing there.
After the Wall fell, from 1991 onwards,
the Festival had to be reorganised
Because government funds became limited
and so promotion had to be taken care of.
Nicholas McGegan did a very good job.
He managed to bring big names to Göttingen,
like Donna Leon or the director Doris Dörrie.
The musical performance for the firework display at Lake Kiessee
was one of the highlights of the new format that was introduced.
People were looking at us closely and were saying:
‘You’ve got to open up other avenues.’
‘You need bigger audiences!’
And so we did just that.
Since then, for example, we have reached out to other areas around here.
And for years now, we have been giving concerts,
in barns and stables as well, and also in manor houses here,
It is also true that the public loves it,
You need to know that over 50 percent of our guests
come from outside the region and from abroad.
They love it, when they don’t just
sit in the Johanneskirche (St. John’s Church), or in the the Stadthalle (the town’s event and concert hall),
but also in the palace in Hannoversch Münden,
or in the castle in Adelebsen, or in some manor house.
And in that respect, I think we’ve done something worthwhile
and reached out far more to the public.
Before that, he had always
– just as Gardiner had done it –
brought in orchestras from outside, including baroque orchestras.
But McGegan decided:
‘We’ll make an institution for this Festival –
our own festival orchestra.’
The orchestra was made up
of musicians from various other orchestras –
and it still exists today.
There is an established nucleus of musicians
who have been part of it from the very start.
Als ich der Künstlerische Leiter wurde,
war das eine ziemliche Herausforderung.
Mein Vorgänger Nicholas McGegan war eine lange Zeit hier, 22 Jahre.
Ich hatte das Festival viele Male als Gast besucht,
aber auch als Künstler.
Ich war immer sehr beeindruckt von der Qualität und dem Niveau.
Ich genoss sehr das von Nicholas gegründete Orchester,
das Festspiel-Orchester Göttingen.
Es ist mir eine Ehre mit solch großartigen Musikern zu arbeiten.
Es ist eine so wunderschöne Stadt für ein Barockfestival.
Für mich war das sehr aufregend.
Und es freut mich sehr,
dass ich als Künstlerischer Leiter tätig sein durfte.
Wir haben mit großer Freude
die Programme des Festivals zusammengestellt
und wollten gerne ein paar Neuerungen einführen.
Somit gibt es mittlerweile jedes Jahr eine Familienversion der Oper.
Juri Tetzloff stellt den Kindern die einzelnen Charaktere vor.
Das ist eine tolle Möglichkeit.
Als brächten die Kinder ihre Eltern und Großeltern in die Oper,
nicht andersherum.
Das ist wirklich toll.
Weitere Dinge, die wir angestoßen haben
sind das Jugendprogramm, "Händel 4 Kids".
Die bisherigen Hip Hop Opern waren brilliant.
Es ist so wundervoll, zu sehen,
wie sich die Kinder in das Musik-Machen stürzen.
Un dann natürlich die Singalong Gottesdienste,
zu denen ein wundervoller Freiwilligen-Chor gehört.
Die Teilnehmenden investieren hier eine Menge Zeit, um zu Proben.
Sie arbeiten zusammen mit dem Jugendorchester.
Ich mag besonders diese Mischung.
Denn der Chor besteht aus Erwachsenen.
Jeden Alters.
Dazu die jungen Leute des Orchesters, die mit solch einem Enthusiasmus spielen.
Tobias Wolff und ich wollten gerne,
dass die Bevölkerung das Festival als ihr Eigen empfindet.
Es ist ein internationales Festival, wir haben Gäste aus der ganzen Welt.
Auch Teile des Publikums kommen von auswärts.
Aber es ist wirklich ein Göttinger Festival.
Es ist für die Göttinger Menschen.
Und wir wollten gerne
so viele Menschen wie möglich einbeziehen.
Es war wirklich eine wundervolle Gelegenheit für mich,
großartige Musik mit großartigen Musiker*innen zu spielen.
Und das ist eine große Ehre.
2020 ist der hundertste Geburtstag des Festivals.
Das Jahr darauf, 2021, wird mein letztes Jahr sein.
Ich war dann für zehn Jahre Künstlericher Leiter.
Ich bin sehr stolz auf das, was das Festival erreicht hat,
und momentan erreicht,
und auf das, was es sicherlich weiterhin erreichen wird.
Ich denke,
das Wichtigste für mich
war die Verbindung zwischen den Musizierenden und dem Publikum
und der Stadt Göttingen.