Max Reinhardt: Pioneer of Modern Theatre Direction
Max Reinhardt (9 September 1873 – 30 October 1943) was an Austrian-born theatre and film director, intendant, and theatrical producer. His radically innovative stage productions established him as one of the most prominent stage directors of the early 20th century.
Early Life and Education
Reinhardt was born Maximilian Goldmann in Baden bei Wien, the spa town in Austria, to Jewish parents Rachel Lea Rosi “Rosa” Goldmann and Wilhelm Goldmann, a merchant from Stupava, Slovakia. After finishing school, he began an apprenticeship at a bank while simultaneously taking acting lessons.
Career and Achievements
Reinhardt made his stage debut in 1890 under his adopted stage name at a private venue in Vienna. In 1893 he performed at the reopened Salzburg City Theatre, and a year later relocated to Berlin to join the Deutsches Theater ensemble under director Otto Brahm. In 1901, he co-founded the Schall und Rauch (Sound and Smoke) Kabarett stage in Berlin with Friedrich Kayßler and other theatre colleagues. The venue was later reopened as the Kleines Theater (Little Theatre), becoming the first of numerous stages where Reinhardt directed until 1933.
From 1903 to 1905, Reinhardt managed the Neues Theater (present-day Theater am Schiffbauerdamm) and acquired the Deutsches Theater in Berlin in 1906. He also served as director of the Volksbühne theatre from 1915 to 1918. Between 1910 and 1913, he contributed to the Swedish avant-garde theatre magazine Thalia. In 1918, Reinhardt purchased Schloss Leopoldskron castle near Salzburg.
Notable Events and Milestones
On 23 December 1917, Reinhardt directed the world premiere of Reinhard Sorge’s Kleist Prize-winning play Der Bettler, a production that almost single-handedly gave birth to Expressionism in theatre and subsequently in motion pictures. The staging employed revolutionary techniques and marked the first fully Expressionist theatrical presentation. In 1920, Reinhardt established the Salzburg Festival by directing an open-air production of Hugo von Hofmannsthal’s adaptation of the Everyman Medieval mystery play in the square before the Cathedral, with the Alps as backdrop—a tradition that continues annually to this day.
In 1911, Reinhardt premiered Karl Vollmöller’s The Miracle in Olympia, London, gaining international recognition. In October 1922, he attended a performance of The Dybbuk staged by the Vilna Troupe at the Roland Theater in Vienna and congratulated the actors backstage. In 1935, Reinhardt directed his first and only motion picture in the United States through Warner Brothers: an Expressionist film adaptation of William Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream, starring James Cagney, Olivia De Havilland, and Mickey Rooney. The Nazi Ministry of Propaganda banned the film due to Joseph Goebbels’ condemnation of Expressionism as degenerate art and his objections to the Jewish ancestry of Reinhardt, composer Felix Mendelssohn, and soundtrack arranger Erich Wolfgang Korngold.
Awards and Honors
Reinhardt founded several influential drama schools: the Hochschule für Schauspielkunst “Ernst Busch” in Berlin, the Max Reinhardt Seminar, the Max Reinhardt Workshop on Sunset Boulevard, and the Max Reinhardt Junior Workshop. By the time of his endorsement of The Dybbuk in 1922, he was already recognized throughout Austria as a distinguished theatre director.
Additional Resources
Reinhardt fled Austria due to Nazi anti-Semitic persecution, and his castle was seized following Germany’s 1938 Anschluss annexation. After World War II, Schloss Leopoldskron was restored to his heirs and later became known as a filming location for The Sound of Music. Though Reinhardt did not live to see the end of Nazism in 1945, his legacy continues to be celebrated in the Germanosphere for his revolutionary contributions to theatre and film. More detailed information about his life and work is available through Wikipedia and other biographical archives.
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