Mutzenbecher, Kurt von

Intendant

Born: 18.11.1866 in Hamburg

died: 07.10.1938 in Berlin

Mutzenbecher, who came from a wealthy Hamburg merchant family, studied law at the Knight's Academy in Brandenburg (Havel), in Bonn and Berlin, before switching to a military career. He became an officer in Bonn in 1888 and worked at the German embassy in the USA from 1891-93. He obtained his doctorate in Erlangen in 1896, then worked as a trainee lawyer in Spandau and as a court assessor in Berlin. He became a member of the Richard Wagner Society and the PAN cooperative, which published the art and literary magazine PAN in Berlin from 1895-1900. This led to friendly relations with the art patron Harry Graf Kessler, the art historian Eberhard von Bodenhausen and the Belgian architect Henry van de Velde. In 1902/03, Mutzenbecher worked as a trainee at the general management of the Königliche Schauspiele in Berlin.

When Georg von Hülsen became general director in Berlin in 1903, he appointed Mutzenbecher as his deputy as director of the Royal Court Theater in Wiesbaden. He was far more open to modern trends than Hülsen, but was unable to push through his proposals for the May Festival. In drama, he considered contemporary authors such as Ibsen, Hauptmann, Hofmannsthal and Shaw; in opera, Puccini and Richard Strauss were established in the Wiesbaden repertoire. He introduced afternoon performances for the general public and schoolchildren and, from 1907, a "popular week" at the end of the season to enable less affluent sections of the population to attend the theater.

Mutzenbecher was a collector of French paintings from Seurat and Signac to Gauguin and Matisse. He had his apartment in Augustastrasse furnished by van de Velde; the music room was a collaboration between van de Velde, the painter Maurice Denis and the sculptor Aristide Maillol. It was shown at the Arts and Crafts Exhibition in Dresden in 1906 and earned Mutzenbecher fierce nationalist criticism. In 1906, he became a member of the board of the "Wiesbadener Gesellschaft für Bildende Kunst".

In 1918, Mutzenbecher resigned from his position as director. He sold his works of art, some to Otto Henkell, most of which are now considered lost. In 1921, he moved his residence to Berlin.