Theater landscapes

Chemnitz - Known as an industrial center in the GDR, the city quickly gets the label "ugly" today and is easily forgotten in the shadow of its neighbors Leipzig and Dresden.
It is a city for a second glance.
It is easy to notice that great talents started their careers here: in sport Michael Ballack, Katharina Witt or Lars Riedel, on stage Cornelia Schmaus, Michael Gwisdek, Andreas Schmidt-Schaller, Ulrich Mühe or Corinna Harfouch.

In 1909, today's opera house was opened as the "Neues Stadttheater" and lived through comparatively quiet times until the Second World War.
In 1945, the theater lies in ruins.
Difficult years of reconstruction begin.
The situation does not improve until the 1950s.
The new rulers also gave Chemnitz a new name: Karl-Marx-Stadt.
The city bears the name with success.
Karl Marx Stadt is quickly regarded as the economic metropolis of the GDR and becomes a Mecca for drama.

A great era begins at the theater in 1969 with artistic director Gerhard Meyer.
The theater captivates with its unconventionality and progressiveness.
And the plays on the stage in Karl-Marx-Stadt were not always true to the Stasi line - much to the annoyance of the Stasi.
The night before the premiere of such a sensitive play, a fire suddenly breaks out in the theater.
The exact course of events is never fully clarified.

1989 - The GDR is at an end.
In the years following the revolution, tens of thousands leave Chemnitz, as the city is soon called again.
The new era also leads the people of Chemnitz into the new world.
After decades of drama dominance, opera now causes a sensation.
The performance of Kurt Weill's "Weg der Verheißung" (Path of Promise) is internationally acclaimed in 2000 - the greatest success in Chemnitz opera history.
And the next generation?
They are still being supported: In the "Studio Chemnitz", drama students are trained for the major stages in Germany.

First broadcast: Sunday, June 14, 2009, 12:30 p.m., 3Sat.