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Carl Anton Charles Ebert (20 February 1887 – 14 May 1980), was a Germans actor, stage director and arts administrator.
Ebert's early career was as an actor, training under Max Reinhardt and becoming one of the leading actors in his native Germany during the 1920s. During that decade he was also appointed to administrative posts, both theatrical and academic. In 1929 he directed opera for the first time, and during the 1930s established a reputation as an operatic director in Germany and beyond. A strong opponent of Nazism, he left Germany in 1933 and did not return until 1945.
Together with John Christie and the conductor Fritz Busch, Ebert created the Glyndebourne Festival Opera in 1934. Ebert remained its artistic director until 1959, though productions were suspended during the Second World War. In the 1930s and 1940s Ebert helped establish a national conservatory in Turkey, where he and his family lived from 1940 to 1947.
In his later years Ebert held administrative posts in Los Angeles and Berlin, and was a guest director at opera houses and festivals in Europe.
In 1922 Ebert returned to his native Berlin, where he joined the Berlin State Drama Theatre, continuing to build a reputation as one of Germany's leading actors. His greatest success was in the role of Leicester in Schiller's Mary Stuart."Professor Carl Ebert – Unique contribution to British operatic life", The Times, 16 May 1980, p. 17 While continuing to act with the Berlin company he was appointed director and professor at the new State drama school at the Hochschule für Musik in Berlin, a post he held for two years. In 1927 he was appointed Generalintendant of the Landestheater Darmstadt, the first actor to hold the post. There he directed his first opera productions, Le nozze di Figaro and Otello (1929).Canning Hugh. "Ebert, Carl", Grove Music Online, Oxford Music Online. Oxford University Press, accessed 12 January 2013 For the next four years he refined his ideas for modernising the production of opera. In 1931 he was appointed to run the Städtische Oper in Berlin. Among the productions during his tenure were the world premiere of Kurt Weill's Die Bürgschaft in 1932, and a new production of Giuseppe Verdi's Un ballo in maschera in the same year, on which he collaborated for the first time with the conductor Fritz Busch.Ebert, pp. 74–75
In 1934 Busch accepted an invitation to take charge of the inaugural season of the Glyndebourne Festival Opera in a purpose-built opera house in the grounds of John Christie's country house in south east England. At Busch's suggestion Christie engaged Ebert as director.Kennedy, p. 19 With Christie's backing, they revolutionised the staging of opera in Britain. The Times later said of Ebert:
In The Observer, A H Fox Strangways wrote, "This is the first time in this generation, and probably much longer, that opera has been done right under English management.Fox Strangways, A H. "Music and Musicians", The Observer, 3 June 1934, p. 14
In 1936, at the instigation of Kemal Atatürk, Ebert founded the opera and drama school of the Ankara Conservatory. After five successful seasons Glyndebourne suspended productions for the duration of the Second World War. Both Busch and Ebert would have been liable to internment as enemy aliens had they remained in Britain, and Ebert moved his family to Ankara in 1940, remaining as head of the Department of the Performing Arts at the conservatory there until 1947.Ebert, pp. 155 and 182
In 1948 Ebert created the opera department of the University of Southern California, Los Angeles of which he was professor and head until 1954. From this grew a professional company, the Guild Opera Company of Los Angeles, of which he was general director from 1950 to 1954. During this period he took American citizenship. In 1954 he finally returned to a permanent post in Germany, resuming his former position in charge of the Städtische Oper, Berlin. In 1961 he supervised the rebuilding and directed the opening production of the company's new opera house in Berlin, the Deutsche Oper, after which he retired.
Ebert continued to accept invitations to work as a guest director with Glyndebourne (until 1963), Zürich and the Wexford Festival (until 1965), and Berlin (until 1967). In 1965 and 1967 he gave masterclasses, televised by the BBC.
Ebert retired to California, where he died in Santa Monica at the age of 93.
Exile
When the came to power in 1933, Hermann Göring, in his capacity as chief minister of Prussia, offered Ebert an expanded role, with control of all the opera houses of Berlin. Ebert, politically hostile to Nazism, preferred instead to leave the country and base himself and his family in Switzerland, where he rented a home in Lugano District. He directed at the Schauspielhaus Zürich, the Maggio Musicale Fiorentino in Florence and the German opera season at the Teatro Colón in Buenos Aires. During four seasons at the Colón Ebert worked closely with Fritz Busch, who, like him, was a voluntary exile from Nazi Germany. Later Ebert was a guest director at La Scala, the Metropolitan Opera, the Vienna State Opera and the Salzburg Festival, among others.
Postwar
At the end of the Second World War the Allied powers occupying Germany invited Ebert to undertake a thorough tour of all parts of the country and report on the state of the theatre.Ebert, p. 163 He did so, but declined the offer that followed of a permanent theatre post in Germany. When Glyndebourne reopened after the war Ebert and Busch returned, and their productions continued to set high standards. Ebert remained as artistic director until retiring in 1959.
Selected filmography
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Categories: 1887 Births, 1980 Deaths, German Theatre Directors, German Male Stage Actors, German Male Film Actors, German Male Silent Film Actors, German Theatre Managers And Producers, German Opera Managers, Opera In Turkey, Ernst Busch Academy Of Dramatic Arts Alumni, Male Actors From Berlin, University Of Southern California Faculty, Emigrants From Nazi Germany To The United States, 20th-century German Male Actors, Academic Staff Of Ankara State Conservatory
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