Edmund Kean, (born March 17?, 1789, London, England—died May 15, 1833, London) one of the greatest of English tragic actors, a turbulent genius noted as much for his megalomania and ungovernable behaviour as for his portrayals of villains in Shakespearean plays.addiction to alcohol,

By the standards of the time, he was unsuited to the great tragic roles. The style then in vogue was artificial, declamatory, and statuesque, and its leading exponent, John Philip Kemble, was an actor of classic good looks, imposing figure, and vocal eloquence. Though Kean had handsome features, notably unusually expressive eyes, he was small, with a voice that was harsh, forceful, and commanding rather than melodious. He could never have hoped to compete with Kemble on Kemble’s terms, so he had to become an innovator as well as a virtuoso. On January 26, 1814, when he made his Drury Lane debut as Shylock in Shakespeare’s The Merchant of Venice, the measure of his triumph was not to outshine Kemble but to outmode him.

In his portrayal of Shylock, Kean donned a black beard instead of the traditional comic red beard and wig and played the Jewish moneylender as a frenzied

and embittered monster of evil armed with a butcher knife. His performance created a sensation, and Kean quickly brought forward a succession of Shakespearean villains, most notably Richard III, Iago, and Macbeth. He also excelled at playing Othello and Hamlet. His great non-Shakespearean roles were as Sir Giles Overreach in Philip Massinger’s A New Way to Pay Old Debts and as Barabas in Christopher Marlowe’s The Jew of Malta. As an actor Kean relied on his own forceful and turbulent personality and on sudden transitions of voice and facial expression. There was nothing improvised about his performances, however. Technically they were carefully planned, and it was said of his portrayal of Othello that, with its unvarying tones and semitones, rests and breaks, forte and piano, crescendo and diminuendo, it might have been read from a musical score. His range was limited, however. He excelled at malign roles but usually failed at parts calling for nobility, virtue,

Though Kean remained a passionately admired actor, as a public figure he became increasingly unpopular. Haunted by his fear of losing his position as head of the British stage, he was betrayed into displays of jealousy against potential rivals. At the same time, his fame and fortune (he earned, on the average, £10,000 a year) were insufficient to satisfy his ambitions.

At Covent Garden on March 25, 1833, playing Othello to his son Charles’s Iago, he collapsed during the performance—his last. A few weeks later he died at his house at Richmond, Surrey, leaving his son only his name. The name proved to be a valuable asset, however, for Charles Kean, who established a reputation as the pioneer of representational realism and who in this sense is considered the forerunner of Sir Henry Irving.Charles Kean the son of the famed actor Edmund Kean, he was educated at Eton and made his debut as Young Norval in Douglas in London in 1827. He toured the provinces extensively but first won general acceptance during an American tour in 1830. Returning to England, he steadily gained in reputation with well-honed performances,

Although handicapped by poor vocal projection and an unprepossessing physical appearance, Kean compensated by perfecting the details of each performance.

The productions of the Kean’s influence staging in Europe. Of particular interest to us is The Duke of Saxe Meiningen.

Meiningen Ensemble[edit]After the Franco-Prussian War, Georg devoted himself to theatre. He was one of the greatest intellectuals among the higher nobility during the Second German Empire. He is particularly known for developing the Meiningen Ensemble using his court theatre. Using his knowledge of art history and his drawing skills, he designed highly detailed, historically accurate scenery, costumes, and properties. In addition, he choreographed large crowd scenes that stunned audiences across Europe. He and his ensemble toured Europe extensively, and had a profound effect on theatre production across the continent. There is no doubt that Realism saw the development of the director as a separate entity, someone with an eye to oversee, someone responsible for the overall conception, interpretation, style and detail of the theatrical performance. The Meiningen Ensemble from its roots in the late 1830s under the directorships of Georg II (Duke of Sax-Meiningen) and Ludwig Chronegk, proceeded to develop a theatre

company bereft of theatre-managers and the star system. A system centered on realistic acting and staging and well-developed 'unified' productions. The Ensemble which began as a court theatre but started touring in 1874, used detailed research of people, locations, costumes and set, along with highly choreographed and individually detailed crowd scenes, to create productions which were esthetically unified and realistic in their presentations.

Georg IIDuke of Saxe-Meiningen

He in turn had an influence of Richard Wagner. Total theatre and a great innovator in stage matters.

Wilhelm Richard Wagner (/ˈvɑːɡnər/; German: [ˈʁiçaʁt ˈvaːɡnɐ]; 22 May 1813 – 13 February 1883) was a German composer, theatre director, polemicist, and conductor who is primarily known for his operas (or, as some of his later works were later known, "music dramas"). Unlike most opera composers, Wagner wrote both the libretto and the music for each of his stage works. Initially establishing

his reputation as a composer of works in the romantic vein of Weber and Meyerbeer, Wagner revolutionised opera through his concept of the Gesamtkunstwerk ("total work of art"), by which he sought to synthesise the poetic, visual, musical and dramatic arts, with music subsidiary to drama. He described this vision in a series of essays published between 1849 and 1852. Wagner realised these ideas most fully in the first half of the four-opera cycle Der Ring des Nibelungen (The Ring of the Nibelung).His compositions, particularly those of his later period, are notable for their complex textures, rich harmonies and orchestration, and the elaborate use of leitmotifs—musical phrases associated with individual characters, places, ideas or plot elements. His advances in musical language, such as extreme chromaticism and quickly shifting tonal centres, greatly influenced the development of classical music. His Tristan und Isolde is sometimes described as marking the start of modern music.Wagner had his own opera house built, the Bayreuth Festspielhaus, which embodied many novel design features. The Ring and Parsifal were premiered here and his most important stage works continue to be performed at the annual Bayreuth Festival, run by his descendants. His thoughts on the relative contributions of music and drama in opera were to change again, and he reintroduced some traditional forms into his last few stage works, including Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg (The Mastersingers of Nuremberg).Until his final years, Wagner's life was characterised by political exile, turbulent love affairs, poverty and repeated flight from his creditors. His controversial writings on music, drama and politics have attracted extensive comment, notably, since the late 20th century, where they express antisemitic sentiments. The effect of his ideas can be traced in many of the arts throughout the 20th century; his influence spread beyond composition into conducting, philosophy, literature, the visual arts and theatre.

Richard Wagner in 1871