Rudolf Sellner, born Gustav Rudolf Sellner (25 May 1905 – 8 May 1990) was a German actor, dramaturge, stage director, and intendant. He represented in the 1950s a radical Instrumentales Theater (instrumental theatre). After decades of acting and directing plays, he turned to staging operas, and was a long-time intendant of the Deutsche Oper Berlin from 1961, when the Berlin Wall was built. He staged notable world premieres, including Ernst Barlach's play Der Graf von Ratzeburg in 1951, Ionesco's Mörder ohne Bezahlung in 1958, Giselher Klebe's Alkmene in 1961 for the opening of the Deutsche Oper, and Aribert Reimann's opera Melusine in 1971. Career Born Gustav Rudolf Sellner in Traunstein, he began his career as an actor, dramaturge and stage director at theatres in Mannheim under from 1925, in Gotha from 1928, and in Coburg from 1929 to 1931. He was influenced by the work of Otto Falckenberg, Leopold Jessner and Erwin Piscator. He was an Oberspielleiter, dramaturge and actor at the Landestheater Oldenburg from 1932 to 1937 when he was promoted to Schauspieldirektor (director of plays) there. Sellner joined the Nazi Party in 1933. He was Intendant of the from 1940 to 1943. Sellner was Intendant of the from 1943. He also directed the Theaterschule Hannover, a school of acting as part of the Landesmusikschule Hannover. In 1944 he was appointed Generalintendant of the Städtische Bühnen. In October 1944, he was drafted into the Wehrmacht. After World War II, he was a prisoner of war and was interned until 1947 in two U.S. prisoner camps. In the process of denazification in 1949, he was ranked as a Mitläufer, revised in 1950 to "entlastet". From 1948 to 1951, he worked as a stage director in Kiel, Essen and Hamburg. He staged in Kiel in 1948 The Persians by Aeschylus, and in 1950 Lorca's Bernarda Albas Haus. From 1951 to 1961, Sellner was Intendant of the Landestheater Darmstadt. He staged the premiere of Ernst Barlach's Der Graf von Ratzeburg in 1951. Sellner also had a small theater school in Darmstadt. When the state ceased subsidies in 1954 in the face of a lack of placement success among the graduates, the theater school had to be dissolved. In 1954, Sellner staged Shakespeare's Troilus und Cressida at the Staatliche Schauspielbühne Berlin, and his Der Sturm at the 1959 Ruhrfestspiele. In Darmstadt, he directed the premiere of Ionesco's Mörder ohne Bezahlung in 1958. He