"The only Bavarian in Loipfing", theater director Peter Kleinschmidt celebrates his 80th birthday. There was indulgence in memories of the court art Loipfing.
Isen –Frankfurt, Kiel, Cape Town: These were just a few of the stages in the life of theater director Peter Kleinschmidt, who has lived in Loipfing near Isen since 1984. The head of the Otto Falckenberg School was 44 years old when he moved to the former farm together with his wife Wiebke. Now he's celebrated his 80th birthday there.
Kleinschmidt likes to describe himself as the "only Bavarian in Loipfing 14". Because he was born in Munich, even though his family moved to Frankfurt six months after his birth. At first it looked as if he would find his calling in music. He received piano lessons at an early age, he took composition lessons from the Mannheim General Music Director Günther Drewanz at the age of ten, and in 1956 the Hessische Rundfunk even broadcast a Bartok concert by the young Peter Kleinschmidt. He was very pleased that his compositions, which he had written when he was twelve, were performed almost 60 years later in the Erding district music school in the “Young composers in the district” series.
Passion theater
But in addition to music, it has always been theater that has had an ever increasing fascination for him. Already as a student, he attended the Frankfurt theater, built marionettes and staged plays. After studying drama in Cologne, she received her doctorate on the masks of Gigaku, the oldest form of theater in Japan. From university, he directed in Cape Town, Arnhem and Antwerp.
In 1964, he was chief dramaturge at the Kiel Theater, he met the young actress Wiebke Grondahl. They married in 1966. As a director, he directed 30 productions, and he translated 20 pieces - from Aristophanes to Athol Fugard. After the Falckenberg School, the specialist academy for performing arts in the state capital of Munich, it took a few years for art to move into Loipfing at the end of the last millennium. Hofkunst Loipfing - even if there have been no performances and readings in recent years - has remained in the people of the district because of its extraordinary cultural events. "B'Vegl" and "The Peace" in Burgrainer Schlosshof, "Die Fösche", "Der Cid" and the many other theater projects in the knight's hall, as the former stable is called, caused a sensation. "Burgrain, yes great", Kleinschmidt recalls the day after his birthday of the two big productions, with more than a hundred actors, singers and helpers.
Friendships that continue to this day
Kleinschmidt is a little tired, he celebrated his birthday with friends in the knight's hall, but takes the strength and time to visit Mayor Siegfried Fischer. “We were incredibly lucky to have Margarita Alber's help,” he says. "Margit knew them all, I didn't know anyone here myself."
Wiebke Kleinschmidt added that the friendships and contacts that were made through Alber in 1997 still exist today. In addition to Alber, who has become a good friend, Petra and Claus Paul Haller, who have lived with them in the Loipfing farm since 1990, are special people, the Kleinschmidts say. A happy coincidence, because the Hallers are not only flat mates, but were co-founders of Hofkunst Loipfing. And it was restorer Claus Paul Haller who, as a trained electrician and skilled tinkerer, technically implemented even the craziest ideas from Kleinschmidt.
Kleinschmidt and Hofkunst wrote theater history through the premiere of Christian Dietrich Grabbe's “The Cid”. In 2002 the Kleinschmidts and their actors, a firm tribe of talented amateurs, staged the freaky opera in two to four acts from 1835, which was not considered performable. Peter Kleinschmidt recalls that he generally took a lot of time rehearsing the pieces. Today he sees the secret of success in the fact that the pleasure he had in developing a piece was "carried over to people".
And what about today?
"Today the passion for theater takes place in my head," says the 80-year-old. He enjoys the large, wild garden with the many exotic plants. "Peter ordered, I planted," says Wiebke Kleinschmidt specifying her husband's part in garden design with a smile.
And he has pleasure when friends visit him, such as his schoolmates from Frankfurt's high school who regularly hold their class reunions in Loipfing. The jubilee will also be happy to look at the "Biography in Pictures", a book that his friend, the painter Peter Casagrande, has put together especially for his birthday and will enjoy the many pictures that illustrate the stages of his life ,
Anne Huber
