THEATRE TCU HISTORY

WALTHER VOLBACH

Walther Volbach was born in Mainz, Germany in 1897. He was educated at the University of Tuebingen, University of Munich, and received his Ph.D. from the University of Munster in Westphalia in 1920, completing his dissertation on “The Development of Realism on the German Stage.” In the 1920’s he was an assistant to Max Reinhardt at the Deutsche Theatre in Berlin, and for the next fifteen years or so, Dr. Volbach himself worked as a stage director of plays and operas at the State Theatres in Stuttgart and Berlin, at the Municipal Theatres in Zurich, Danzig and Kiel, and at Vienna’s Volkstheater and Volksopera. He also served as an instructor at academies in Berlin, Vienna, and Kiel.

After moving to the United States in the late 1930’s, Dr. Volbach taught and directed in Missouri, Ohio and Wisconsin, including serving as the Director of the Opera Department at the Cleveland Institute of Music, and as Director of Dramatics at Marquette University in Milwaukee. Dr. Volbach moved to the Southwest to become the Director of Theatre, and later Chair of the Department of Theatre at Texas Christian University in 1946, where he remained on the faculty there until his retirement in 1965. During his years at TCU, Dr. Volbach directed more than 50 plays, musicals and operas, including Shakespeare, Moliere, Sheridan, Ibsen, Shaw, Coward, Williams, Miller, Hellman and Wilder. He published articles in the Educational Theatre Journal, Player’s Magazine and the National Theatre Conference Bulletin, and TCU Press published his book Problems of Opera Production in 1953; a revised edition was published in 1965 by Benjamin Blom in New York. Dr. Volbach served as president of the Fort Worth Theatre Council, the Texas Educational Theatre Association, and the Southwest Theatre Conference. He also served as the Chair of the Opera division of the Rare Theatre Books Project of AETA. He was a frequent speaker and panel chair at AETA and SWTC conventions, and was also an invited speaker at the International Theatre Festival in Bristol, England and the International Musicological Conquest in Vienna. He received grants from the Carnegie Foundation and the Ministry of Cultural Affairs in Stuttgart.

After retiring from TCU, Dr. Volbach and his wife Claire moved to Amherst, Massachusetts, where he taught for several years as an Adjunct Professor of Theatre at the University of Massachusetts. He passed away on August 5, 1996, at the age of 99.