page_title: Harry Buckwitz
section_title: Frankfurt
hierarchical_section_title: Harry Buckwitz / Career / Frankfurt
caption_attribution_description: Deutsch: Frankfurt am Main, Städtische Bühnen am Willy-Brandt-Platz English: Frankfurt am Main, City Opera and Theatre at Willy-Brandt-Platz
context_page_description: Harry Buckwitz was a German actor, theatre director and theatre manager. He was general manager of the Städtische Bühnen Frankfurt from 1951 and 1967, where he was responsible for opera and plays, and initiated a new house for them after the formerly separate theatres had been destroyed in World War II. He is known for Brecht productions, in Frankfurt and at the Schauspielhaus Zürich from 1970 to 1977.
context_section_description: After World War II, Buckwitz became manager of Münchner Kammerspiele in 1946. He moved to the Städtische Bühnen Frankfurt in 1951, where he was general director (Generalintendant). In 1952, he recruited Georg Solti as Generalmusikdirektor for the Oper Frankfurt. Buckwitz suggested housing both opera and theatre under one roof. The separate theatres of the company, which had been destroyed during the war, were replaced by one house, inaugurated in December 1963. Its official name is Opern- und Schauspielhaus Frankfurt.
  Buckwitz focused on productions of Bertolt Brecht's plays which he directed himself, such as Der kaukasische Kreidekreis in 1955 and Mutter Courage und ihre Kinder in 1958, with Therese Giehse in the title role. He also produced works by contemporary authors such as Friedrich Dürrenmatt, Max Frisch, Rolf Hochhuth, Eugène Ionesco, Arthur Miller, Jean-Paul Sartre and Tennessee Williams, some of them performed in Germany for the first time. He tried to open the theatre to all social classes, achieving an occupancy rate of up to 90 percent. His programs were criticised by some as communist propaganda. After health problems and budget disputes with the city government, Buckwitz announced his resignation in January 1967, serving until his contract ended in August 1968.
  In 1962, Buckwitz became vice president of the Deutsche Akademie der Darstellenden Künste.
caption: Opern- und Schauspielhaus Frankfurt, built while Buckwitz was general manager, in 2014
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