The Meiningen Ensemble, also known as the Meiningen Company, was the court

Noble court

The court of a monarch, or at some periods an important nobleman, is a term for the extended household and all those who regularly attended on the ruler or central figure...

 theatre of the German

Germany

Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...

 state

Ernestine duchies

The Ernestine duchies, also called the Saxon duchies , were a changing number of small states largely located in the present German state of Thuringia, governed by dukes of the Ernestine line of the House of Wettin.-Overview:The...

 of Saxe-Meiningen

Saxe-Meiningen

The Duchy of Saxe-Meiningen was one of the Saxon duchies held by the Ernestine line of the Wettin dynasty, located in the southwest of the present-day German state of Thuringia....

, led by Georg II, Duke of Saxe-Meiningen

Georg II, Duke of Saxe-Meiningen

Georg II, Duke of Saxe-Meiningen , was the penultimate Duke of Saxe-Meiningen, reigning from 1866 to 1914.-Family and early life:...

. Its principal director was Ludwig Chronegk

Ludwig Chronegk

Ludwig Chronegk was a German actor and director. He headed the Meiningen Ensemble and reformed the Regietheater.- Life :...

. The Ensemble was a great influence on Ibsen

Henrik Ibsen

Henrik Ibsen was a major 19th-century Norwegian playwright, theatre director, and poet. He is often referred to as "the father of prose drama" and is one of the founders of Modernism in the theatre...

, Antoine

André Antoine (actor)

André Antoine was a French actor, theatre manager, film director, author, and critic who is considered the father of modern mise en scène in France.-Biography:...

, and Stanislavski.

The Duke admired Charles Kean

Charles Kean

Charles John Kean , was born at Waterford, Ireland, the son of the actor Edmund Kean.After preparatory education at Worplesdon and at Greenford, near Harrow, he was sent to Eton College, where he remained three years...

's attempts to stage Shakespeare

William Shakespeare

William Shakespeare was an English poet and playwright, widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world's pre-eminent dramatist. He is often called England's national poet and the "Bard of Avon"...

's plays in a manner that was historically accurate for the place and period in which each drama was set. The Ensemble that he created, which toured Germany and Europe in 1874–1890, became famous across Europe for its detailed, archeologically authentic reproductions of locations and its realistic, fully individuated crowd scenes. Its productions offered a model of an integrated, unified

Gesamtkunstwerk

A Gesamtkunstwerk is a work of art that makes use of all or many art forms or strives to do so...

 theatrical aesthetic and a demonstration of the potential of a tightly controlled, director-focused mode of theatre-making.