Auguste Crelinger

Auguste Sophie Crelinger (widowed Stich, born Düring (7 October 1795 – 11 April 1865) was a German stage actress.

Auguste Stich, Portrait by Siegfried Bendixen
Auguste Crelinger-Stich als Maria Stuart, lithograph by Joseph Lanzedelly the Elder
Auguste Crelinger, 1862.

Life

Born in Berlin, Düring gained her first stage experience as a child with the theatre company Urania. On the occasion of one of these performances she also made the acquaintance of Princess Charlotte von Hardenberg (former actress Langenthal). The latter applied to the theatre director August Wilhelm Iffland for Düring and after her successful debut on 4 May 1812 as Margarete (Die Hagestolzen), she was engaged and remained a member of the royal court theatre there until her last performance.

In 1817, Düring married the actor Wilhelm Stich (1794-1824) and had two daughters with him: Bertha (1818-1876) and Clara (1820-1865), both of whom also went to the stage, and two sons, including Gustav (1822-1848), who died of liver disease at the age of 26 in Bombay, East India.

Stich died under tragic circumstances. Gebhard Bernhard Carl Blücher von Wahlstatt (1799-1875), a grandson of the famous Feldherrn, was a second lieutenant in the Guard Hussars and had a rendezvous with Auguste Stich on 6 February 1823, as he wanted to say goodbye to her before a long journey. In the stairwell, he met her husband, whom he injured with his dagger after a brief heated argument.[1] Blücher was sentenced to three years' imprisonment which he served at the Wisłoujście Fortress.[2]

Whether there was actually a sexual relationship between the officer Blücher and Auguste Stich is unclear.[3] When Stich returned to the stage as "Thecla" on 8 May of the same year, she was already pre-judged by the audience and booed as an adulteress. To escape this, she travelled to Paris with her husband in early 1824, where she met, among others François-Joseph Talma. According to statements by Ludwig Rellstab (Nothgedrungene Berichtigung), the actor Wilhelm Heinrich Stich died of an infected spleen.

In her second marriage, the widowed Auguste Stich married the railway and insurance entrepreneur Otto Crelinger in Berlin, whose parents - Johann Jacob Crelinger (1753-1837) and Henriette Wilhelmine Charlotte Catherina Crelinger (1774-1826), née Philippsborn -, had great reservations about this marriage.[4] Only after the death of Crelinger's mother in December 1826 was the couple able to become engaged on 31 January 1827; the marriage took place on 23 April 1827.

The relationship with Crelinger enabled the actress to go on educational trips, including to Paris and Saint Petersburg; their house in Berlin became a centre of socialising.

A daughter they had together from this marriage, Johanne Henriette Emilie Auguste Crelinger (1828-1900), married the lawyer and later district administrator of the district of Frankenstein in Silesia, Alexander Groschke (1821-1871). From the estate of the music teacher Clara Groschke, a now lost portrait Auguste Crelinger as the Maid of Orleans (1818) by Friedrich Georg Weitsch came into the Berlin Märkisches Museum in 1925.[5]

Around 1839/1840, Auguste von Bärndorf was a pupil of Crelinger.[6]

After Crelinger celebrated her 50th anniversary at the Berlin Hofbühne in 1862, she retired to private life. She died in Berlin in 1865 at the age of 69 and was buried in the Cemetery II of the Jerusalems- und Neue Kirche in front of the Hallesches Tor there. The grave is not preserved.[7]

Quote

The play was unselfconscious, unforced, without fear or pretension. Nothing learned, nothing borrowed, everything sweet and easy..

— Prof. Samuel Heinrich Catel, Vossische Zeitung

A beautiful figure, a sonorous organ, expressive facial expressions and genuine artistic study were the most distinguished characteristics of this almost consummate actress.

— Ludwig Rellstab, from a theatre critic about Auguste Crelinger

Roles

Students

Auguste von Bärndorf, Elise Bethge-Truhn

Further reading
  • Ludwig Eisenberg: Großes biographisches Lexikon der Deutschen Bühne im XIX. Jahrhundert. Verlag von Paul List, Leipzig 1903, pp. 167 f., (Auguste Crelinger is available for free viewing and download at the Internet Archive).
  • Joseph Kürschner (1876), "Crelinger, Auguste", Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie (ADB) (in German), vol. 4, Leipzig: Duncker & Humblot, pp. 584–586
  • Hans Knudsen (1957), "Crelinger, Sophie Auguste Friederike", Neue Deutsche Biographie (in German), vol. 3, Berlin: Duncker & Humblot, pp. 406–407; (full text online)
  • T. A. Entsch (ed.): Bühnenalmanach, Bd. 27. Verlag Heinrich, Berlin 1863, pp. 75 f.
  • T. A. Entsch (ed.): Bühnenalmanach, Bd. 30. Verlag Heinrich, Berlin 1866, pp. 151 f.
  • Ferdinand Gleich: Aus der Bühnenwelt. Biographische Skizzen und Characterbilder. Verlag Merseburger, Leipzig 1866 (2 volumes.; hier speziell vol. 2, pp. 24 ff).

References
  1. Karl August Varnhagen von Ense: Blätter aus der preußischen Geschichte. Edited by Ludmilla Assing, vol. 2, Leipzig 1868, pp. 291 f., 294 f., 300 ff. (Numbered).
  2. Karl August Varnhagen von Ense: Blätter aus der preußischen Geschichte. Edited by Ludmilla Assing, vol. 2, Leipzig 1868, p. 353 (Numerized).
  3. Antonius Lux (ed.): Große Frauen der Weltgeschichte. A thousand biographies in words and pictures. Sebastian Lux Verlag, Munich 1963, p. 121.
  4. Karl August Varnhagen von Ense: Blätter aus der preußischen Geschichte. Edited by Ludmilla Assing, vol. 4, Leipzig 1869, pp. 154 f. (Numbered).
  5. Cf. the entry in the Koordinierungsstelle für Kulturgutverluste (Numbered).
  6. Hugo Thielen: Bärndorf(f) von Bauerhorst, Auguste von. In Dirk Böttcher, Klaus Mlynek, Waldemar R. Röhrbein, Hugo Thielen: Hannoversches Biographisches Lexikon. Von den Anfängen bis in die Gegenwart. Schlütersche, Hannover 2002, ISBN 3-87706-706-9, p. 35, Online on Google Books
  7. Hans-Jürgen Mende: Lexikon Berliner Begräbnisstätten. Pharus-Plan, Berlin 2018, ISBN 978-3-86514-206-1, p. 231.
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