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Walter Jockisch

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German educator, dramaturgue, librettist and opera director Not to be confused with Walter Jokisch.
Walter Jockisch, c. 1932

Walter Max Guido Jockisch (20 February 1907 – 22 March 1970) was a German pedagogue, dramaturge, librettist, and opera director.

Family

Born in Bad Arolsen, Free State of Waldeck-Pyrmont, Jockisch was the only child of the Oberregierungs-Medizinalrat and Kingdom of Prussia Stabsarzt Franz 'Max' Louis Paul Jockisch (1865–1947) and his first wife Harriet Edeline Eugenie 'Melanie' née von Schlicht (1878–1929). Both parents were evangelical [de].

On 16 August 1933, Jockisch married the writer Gisela Günther née Schoenfeld (1905–1985) in Berlin-Wilmersdorf. The witnesses to the marriage were the writer Paula Ludwig from Ehrwald in Tyrol, whose son Ludwig Friedel [de] had been a pupil of Jockisch on the North Sea island of Juist, and Gretha Schaettler from Berlin. This marriage nominally produced a daughter, Michaela 'Michele' (born 10 November 1933 in Ehrwald, Tyrol; married to Richard Schenkirz from 1957).

His wife had been married before, then an actress, in 1924 to the merchant Heinrich Max Franz Westphal (born 1900) from Słupsk in Pommerania, who lived in Charlottenburg's Schlüterstraße 12. Their marriage was a marriage of convenience, because she was about to give birth to an illegitimate child whose father was a foreigner. Under the Nazi regime, Jockisch wanted to give the child an Aryan qualification. He had met his wife at the Schule am Meer, where she was later involved with the choir and orchestra director Eduard Zuckmayer, the elder brother of the writer Carl Zuckmayer, who worked there. After their divorce in 1934, Gisela and her daughter Michaela followed Zuckmayer into exile in Ankara, where he – through Paul Hindemith and at the invitation of President Kemal Atatürk – was to shape the entire Turkish music teacher training in the spirit of the German Youth Music Movement [de]. Zuckmayer was not able to marry her until 1947 because the Nazi authorities denied expatriate emigrants a Ehefähigkeitsbescheinigung. After their marriage, he adopted Michaela.

In 1946, Jockisch's childhood friend Grete Weil, née Dispeker, who had been married to his friend Edgar Weil who was murdered in the Mauthausen concentration camp in 1941, visited from their Dutch exile. As both had agreed after Weil's death, Grete Weil first lived with Jockisch in Darmstadt from 1947 onwards; they did not marry until 13 February 1961 in Frankfurt.

I did not go to a lonely place, I went to a man who was waiting for me, my childhood friend Walter Jockisch. Since he, who had become an opera director, had never left Germany, he had a large circle of friends, which soon became mine as well.

— Grete Weil

School

Jockisch grew up for about thirteen years initially at Heiligenbrunner Weg 6 in Gdansk-Langfuhr, where he attended school until his family moved to Frankfurt in about 1920 to Holbeinstraße 19 in the Sachsenhausen district. He subsequently attended the Musterschule and became close friends with the brothers Edgar (1908–1941) and Hans Joseph Weil (1906–1969), the sons of Richard Weil, a chemical-pharmaceutical manufacturer with a doctorate, who lived at Friedberger Anlage 9, near their father's company headquarters at Grüne Straße 11–13. Through her he met her grandcousin Grete Dispeker and her friend Doris von Schönthan around 1923/24. He thus belonged to the extended circle of friends of two of Thomas Mann's children, the closely related siblings Erika and Klaus Mann. At Easter 1925 he passed his Reifeprüfung for Musterschule.

Studies

He then studied Germanistics, history and English, at the Goethe University Frankfurt and at the Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universität Berlin. and completed his studies in 1929 in Berlin with an inaugural dissertation on Andreas Gryphius und das literarische Barock and his doctorate to Doctor philosophiae (Dr. phil.).

Professional development

Educator

Teacher Friedrich Könekamp [de] (middle) and Walter Jockisch (right) on the site of the Schule am Meer, Juist, ca. 1930

Jockisch was first employed from 19 April 1930 to 18 March 1932 as a teacher of German, history, English and Latin at the progressive education run by Martin Luserke Landerziehungsheim [de] Schule am Meer on the East Frisia island Juist, where he became involved in the Darstellendes Spiel [de] run by Luserke. Jockisch was influenced by the free-standing Theaterhalle der Schule am Meer [de], which was unique, inspiring amateur drama, the German Youth Movement, the Youth Music Movement and professional theatre. Luserke and Carl Zuckmayer wrote texts for Eduard Zuckmayer's compositions at the Schule am Meer. Jockisch's colleagues also included among others Rudolf Aeschlimann [de], Fritz Hafner, Friedrich Könekamp [de], Heinrich Karl Ernst Martin Meyer, Anni and Paul Reiner [de], Günther Rönnebeck [de] as well as Kurt Sydow [de]. He became close friends with the student Heinz-Günther Knolle (1912–1999), who was also friend with Grete Dispeker from September 1929. From 1932, Jockisch and Knolle lived in a shared apartment on the Weinmeisterhöhe in Berlin-Pichelsdorf [de], Knolle studied at the Humboldt University of Berlin. Jockisch, who after 1933 did not intend to submit to the Nazi dictates, consequently reoriented himself professionally and found a politically largely neutral field of activity.

Artistic director

Between 1935 and 1937 Jockisch worked as assistant stage manager for Walter Felsenstein and Oskar Wälterlin [de] at the Oper Frankfurt. From 1937 to 1940 he worked under Karl Bauer at the opera and operetta of the Deutsches Theater Göttingen [de], first as Spielleiter, from 1938 as Oberspielleiter. Bauer took Jockisch with him when he move to the Grillo-Theater in Essen, where he worked from 1940 to 1944, first as drama director, dramaturge and head of the artistic operations office, and from 1941 as head opera director.

In the last months of the Second World War, Walter Jockisch was drafted into the Wehrmacht as a Funker.

At the end of the war and in the immediate post-war period, Jockisch worked again in Frankfurt (1947: Igor Stravinsky / Charles Ferdinand Ramuz' L'Histoire du Soldat), at times probably also at the Bayerische Staatsoper in Munich. From 1946 to 1948, Jockisch was artistic director of the Landestheater at the Orangerie in Darmstadt, at which he had previously guest directed (1943: Capriccio by Richard Strauss; 1946 Gluck's Orfeo ed Euridice). During this time, Hans Werner Henze met him and his partner Grete Weil (from 1947). According to Henze's retrospective description, Jockisch was a "gaunt anthroposophical pedagogue and theatre man".

In 1948, Jockisch was appointed by Ferdinand Leitner as head of opera at the Staatstheater Stuttgart, where he worked until 1950. During this period and thereafter, he guest-directed productions at the Bühnen in Kiel, again at the Landestheater Darmstadt and at the Niedersächsisches Staatstheater Hannover [de] (1951: Wagner's Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg, 1952: world premiere of Henze's Boulevard Solitude, for which Jockisch had written the libretto together with Grete Weil after Abbé Prévosts Histoire du chevalier Des Grieux et de Manon Lescaut).

Between 1960 and 1963, Jockisch worked under artistic director Hermann Christian Mettin (1910–1980) as head of opera and as artistic advisor at the Theater Oberhausen, before moving to Heidelberg in 1964/65 as head of opera and operetta at the Theater & Orchester Heidelberg.

He continued to be active as a guest director in Darmstadt (e.g., 1964: Offenbach's Daphnis et Chloé), at the Theater Bonn, in Berlin at the Tribüne at Ernst-Reuter-Platz (L'Histoire du Soldat) as well as in Switzerland at the Luzerner Theater [de]. There, between 1960 and 1968, under the direction of Horst Gnekow [de], he staged around twenty music theatre productions, including Wagner's Der fliegende Holländer in 1960, 1961 Orfeo ed Euridice and the Swiss premiere of Brecht/Weill's Aufstieg und Fall der Stadt Mahagonny, 1962 Mozart's Die Hochzeit des Figaro, Gaetano Donizetti's L'elisir d'amore and Jacques Offenbach's Orpheus in the Underworld, 1963 Verdi's La forza del destino, 1964 Mozart's Die Zauberflöte, 1965 Flotow's Martha and Carl Millöcker's Gasparone, 1966 Busoni's Arlecchino and L'Histoire du soldat as well as 1968 Zeller's Der Vogelhändler.

With Gnekow, Jockisch moved to the Theater Münster in 1968, where he served as head of the opera until his death.

Jockisch contracted leukaemia in 1969 and died the following year in Munich at the age of 63.

Correspondence with Walter Jockisch is preserved in the estate of the stage designer and theatre director Wilhelm Reinking [de] in Deutsches Literaturarchiv Marbach (DLA), also in the private archive of Dr. med. dent. Achim Knolle in Löhne.

Works

  • as Walther Jockisch: Andreas Gryphius und das literarische Barock, Phil. Diss. Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universität zu Berlin 1929. Erschienen in Germanische Studien, fascicule 89, Emil Ebering, Berlin 1930, OCLC 459626118, (Cover page 1)
  • ders.: Die Glückskinder. Steyer Verlag, Wiesbaden / Munich OCLC 1145279663
  • as Walter Jockisch: Boulevard Solitude, music Hans Werner Henze, libretto Grete Weil, Szenarium Walter Jockisch. Schott, Mainz 1976, ISBN 3-7957-3352-9.

Research note

Due to the similarity of the name, Walter Jockisch is often confused with the actor Walter Jokisch, who also worked as a theatre director. Walter Jockisch is also partly recorded in the spelling Walther Jockisch, for example in his own dissertation of 1929, published in 1930. Additionally, the fact that his father Dr. med. Franz Max Louis Paul Jockisch was registered in the contemporary address books for Danzig and Frankfurt in the spelling Jokisch, Max, appears confusing, deviating from the civil registry entries.

References

  1. Birth certificate Walter Max Guido Jockisch, Registry Office Arolsen, No. 9/1907, 25 February 1907; facsimile transmitted by the Department of Citizen Services, Public Safety and Order of the City of Bad Arolsen, Siegfried Butterweck, 12 August 2020
  2. Heir certificate Franz Max Louis Paul Jockisch, Standesamt Bad Naueim, No. 2/1947, 2 January 1947
  3. Heir certificate Harriet Edeline Eugenie Melanie Jockisch, née von Schlicht, Standesamt IV Frankfurt, no. 1618/1929, page 430, 8 November 1929, married to Oberregierungsmedizinalrat, Doktor der Medizin Franz Max Louis Paul Jockisch zu Frankfurt, Holbeinstraße 19
  4. In the contemporary address books for Danzig and Frankfurt, Dr. med. Franz Max Louis Paul Jockisch was listed with the spelling Jokisch, Max.
  5. Birth register no. 460 of the Protestant parish Landstraße
  6. Marriage certificate of the registry office Berlin-Wilmersdorf No. 788 of 16 August 1933, Aufgebotsverzeichnis No. 859
  7. Zuckmayer, Gisela. In Deutsche Nationalbibliothek, at d-nb.info
  8. Schreiben von Walter Jockisch an den Studenten Heinz-Günther Knolle (ehemaliger Schüler der Schule am Meer auf Juist) vom 19 November 1933, maschinenschriftlich, unveröffentlicht; Quoted after Faksimile aus dem Privatbesitz von Dr. med. dent. Achim Knolle, Löhne
  9. Irene Nawrocka (ed): Carl Zuckmayer: Briefwechsel, vol. 1: Briefe 1935–1977. Wallstein-Verlag, Göttingen 2004, ISBN 978-3-89244-627-9, p. 122
  10. Heiratsanzeige von Michele und Richard Schenkirz an Carl Zuckmayer, undated 1957. In Nachlass Carl Zuckmayer, Deutsches Literaturarchiv Marbach, Bestandssignatur A:Zuckmayer, Carl; Zugangsnummer HS.1995.0001
  11. Marriage Register Heinrich Max Franz Westphal and Gisela Schoenfeld, Standesamt Charlottenburg I, No. 9/1924, Aufgebotsverzeichnis No. 75, 20 February 1924
  12. Judith Hélène Stadler: Grete Weil – Der Brautpreis. Master's thesis, Faculty of Culture and Social Sciences, University of Lucerne, Lucerne 2010, p. 55 (209)
  13. Eduard Zuckmayer. In Lexikon verfolgter Musiker und Musikerinnen des NS-Zeit (LexM), edited by the Institut für Historische Musikwissenschaft der Universität Hamburg, at uni-hamburg.de
  14. Barbara Trottnow: Eduard Zuckmayer – Ein Musiker in der Türkei. Documentary, on YouTube, 2:41 Min.
  15. ^ Peter Ahrendt: "I am a bad hater", an glarean-magazin.ch
  16. "Schriftstellerin Grete Weil – Mit Liebe und Verbissenheit gegen das Vergessen". Deutschlandfunk Kultur (in German). 14 May 2019. Retrieved 3 September 2021.
  17. Grete Weil: Leb ich denn, wenn andere leben (Autobiographie). Nagel + Kimche, Zurich among others 1998, ISBN 3-596-14342-X, pp. 77, 160–162, 178
  18. Waldemar Fromm, Wolfram Göbel, Gabriele Förg, Kristina Kargl, Elisabeth Tworek Freunde der Monacensia – Jahrbuch 2009. Allitera Verlag, Munich 2009, ISBN 978-3-86906-038-5, p. 96
  19. Heiratsurkunde beim Standesamt Frankfurt am Main-Mitte, Nr. 470/1961
  20. ^ Grete Weil: Leb ich denn, wenn andere leben (Autobiographie). Nagel + Kimche, Zürich among others 1998. ISBN 3-596-14342-X, pp. 236–238, 241
  21. "Grete Weil". Literaturportal Bayern (in German). Retrieved 3 September 2021.
  22. "Grete Weil, Personen". Künste im Exil (in German). Retrieved 3 September 2021.
  23. ^ Maria Frisé: Von Flucht und Rettung. In Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, Nr. 98, 28 April 1998, p. 42, at faz.net
  24. Waldemar Fromm, Wolfram Göbel, Gabriele Förg, Kristina Kargl, Elisabeth Tworek: Freunde der Monacensia e. V. – Jahrbuch 2009. Allitera Verlag, Munich 2009. ISBN 978-3-86906-038-5, p. 101
  25. Grete Weil-Jockisch: Vielleicht, irgendwie… In Marielouise Janssen-Jurreit (rf.): Lieben Sie Deutschland? Gefühle zur Lage der Nation. Piper Verlag, Munich 1985, ISBN 3-4920-0668-X, p. 56
  26. Neues Adressbuch für Danzig und Vororte, 23 Jahrg. 1919, I. Teil. A. W. Kasemann G.m.b.H. Danzig, p. 178 (Jokisch, Max, Dr. med., Ober-Stabsarzt, Lgf.)
  27. Adreßbuch für Frankfurt am Main und Umgebung, 1921 edition (PDF file; 529.62 megabytes). August Scherl Deutsche Adreßbuch-Gesellschaft m.b.H. Frankfurt, p. 264 (Jokisch, Max, doctor)
  28. Adreßbuch für Frankfurt am Main und Umgebung, 1924 edition (PDF file; 276.54 megabytes). August Scherl Deutsche Adreßbuch-Gesellschaft m.b.H. Frankfurt, p. 250 (Jokisch, Max, Ob. Reg. Med. Rat)
  29. ^ Thomas Blubacher: Walter Jockisch. In Andreas Kotte (ed.): Theaterlexikon der Schweiz, vol. 2. Chronos Verlag, Zurich 2005. ISBN 978-3-0340-0715-3, p. 932
  30. Weil, Hans Joseph, at juedisches-leben-in-ingenheim.de
  31. Adreßbuch für Frankfurt am Main und Umgebung 1924 (PDF-Datei; 276,54 Megabyte). August Scherl Deutsche Adreßbuch-Gesellschaft m.b.H. Frankfurt, p. 586 (Dr. R. u. Dr. O. Weil, chem. Präparate; Weil, Richard, Dr., Fabrik.)
  32. Grete Weil: Leb ich denn, wenn andere leben (Autobiographie). Nagel + Kimche, Zürich among others 1998. ISBN 3-596-14342-X, pp. 68–72
  33. Waldemar Fromm, Wolfram Göbel, Gabriele Förg, Kristina Kargl, Elisabeth Tworek: Freunde der Monacensia e. V. – Jahrbuch 2009. Allitera Verlag, Munich 2009. ISBN 978-3-86906-038-5, p. 87
  34. ^ Lehrerbuch der Schule am Meer, Juist, Blatt 31. In Schleswig-Holsteinische Landesbibliothek, Handschriftenabteilung, Nachlass Luserke, Martin, Signatur: Cb 37 (Die handschriftlich ausgefüllte Seite des Lehrerbuches verzeichnet seinen Namen in der Schreibweise Walter Jockisch)
  35. Dr. Walther Jockisch: Andreas Gryphius und das literarische Barock (Germanische Studien, H. 89), edited by Dr. Emil Ebering. Emil Ebering Edition, Berlin 1930, OCLC 459626118
  36. Nicola Kaminski, Robert Schütze: Gryphius-Handbuch. Walter de Gruyter, Berlin 2016 ISBN 978-3-1102-2944-8, p. 908
  37. Stiftung Schule am Meer [de]: Blätter der Außengemeinde der Schule am Meer Juist, 5th circular, July 1930, p. 15
  38. Stiftung Schule am Meer: Blätter der Außengemeinde der Schule am Meer Juist, o. no., November 1934, p. 6
  39. Walter Killy: Dictionary of German Biography, volume 10: Thiebaut – Zycha. Walter de Gruyter, Berlin 2006. ISBN 3-598-23290-X, p. 731
  40. Eduard Zuckmayer / Martin Luserke: Herbst-Kantate, at swissbib.ch
  41. Luserke, Martin. In Bruno Jahn: Deutsche biographische Enzyklopädie der Musik, Vol. 2: S – Z. K. G. Saur Verlag, Munich 2003. ISBN 3-598-11586-5, p. 963
  42. Reichstheaterkammer, Fachschaft Bühne (ed.): Deutsches Bühnen-Jahrbuch – Theatergeschichtliches Jahr- und Adressbuch, 47. Jahrg. 1936, p. 342, 748, OCLC 839415890
  43. Hedwig Mueller von Asow, Erich Herrmann Mueller von Asow (ed.): Kürschners Deutscher Musiker-Kalender 1954. Walter de Gruyter, Berlin 2019. ISBN 978-3-1117-2167-5, p. 560
  44. Ian Pace: The Reconstruction of Post-War West German New Music during the early Allied Occupation (1945–46), and its Roots in the Weimar Republic and Third Reich (1918–45). PhD Thesis, Cardiff University, Cardiff 2018, p. 210, 220
  45. Landestheater in der Orangerie, at darmstadt-stadtlexikon.de
  46. Hans Werner Henze: Reiselieder mit böhmischen Quinten – Autobiographische Mitteilungen 1926–1995. S. Fischer Verlag, Frankfurt 2015. ISBN 978-3-596-31053-1, p. 113
  47. K. F. Reinking: Die großen Ansprüche. In Die Zeit, Nr. 24 (1950), 15 June 1950, at zeit.de
  48. Ferdinand Kösters: Als Orpheus wieder sang... – Der Wiederbeginn des Opernlebens in Deutschland nach dem Zweiten Weltkrieg. Monsenstein und Vannerdat, Münster 2009. ISBN 978-3-86582-832-3, p. 350
  49. ^ Alison Latham (ed.): The Oxford Companion to Music. Oxford University Press, Oxford 2011. ISBN 978-0-1995-7903-7, at oxfordreference.com
  50. As of January 1970, Dr. Walter Jockisch was listed in the Amtliches Fernsprechbuch 14, 1970/71 edition, published by the Oberpostdirektion Frankfurt, for the Frankfurt local network at the address Ostendstraße 1, p. 282
  51. Sterberegister Walter Max Guido Jockisch, Standesamt München, Nr. 962/1970
  52. Judith Hélène Stadler: Grete Weil – Der Brautpreis. Master's thesis, Faculty of Culture and Social Sciences, University of Lucerne, Lucerne 2010, p. 27
  53. Reinking, Wilhelm (1896–1985). In Deutsches Literaturarchiv Marbach, at dla-marbach.de
  54. Henze, Hans Werner. "List of Works". Hans-Werner-Henze-Stiftung (in German). Retrieved 3 September 2021.
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