Alexander Strakosch (actor)

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Alexander Strakosch, 1909
Photographer: Charles Scolik

Alexander Strakosch ( December 3, 1845 in Sebes near Eperies , Kingdom of Hungary - September 17, 1909 in Berlin , German Empire ) was an Austrian theater actor and reciter .

Life

Alexander Strakosch was born as the son of the businessman Hermann Strakosch († 1878). Even as a child he had a tendency towards German poetry and was pulling Das Lied von der Glocke around with an organ, declaiming. He was accompanied by a crowd of children who listened just as attentively as the listeners in the villages in which he performed.

While teaching the Talmud , his extraordinary memory was noticed. He knew z. B. the whole book of Job and the Proverbs of Solomon by heart. On the basis of this knowledge, as well as his conversational speech given in the temple to great acclaim, he was originally supposed to become a preacher. From 1856 he attended high school in Vienna, which he had to drop out of early because his parents were unable to continue paying. He was forced to earn his own money and was employed as an accountant . He also took acting lessons from Julius Findeisen . When his employer declared bankruptcy in 1861 , he went to Adolf von Sonnenthal to receive further acting lessons. Originally, Sonnenthal did not want to take Strakosch as a pupil because of his small stature and his inconspicuous appearance. Only after hearing a lecture of the Song of the Bell was he ready to teach him. In the following period he was not only his teacher, but also looked after him in an almost fatherly manner.

After one year of lessons, Strakosch got his first engagement in Opava in 1862 , where he took the stage as "Spiegelberg". He played amateur roles there, was a character actor and sang in the choir, where he sang with his voice up to C sharp . At times he even danced ballet, repeatedly as a partner of the famous dancer Katharina Lanner (daughter of Joseph Lanner ), until he was engaged at the Deutsches Theater in Pest in 1863 .

He appeared as "Franz Moor" and had great success with it. There he also demonstrated his great versatility. He played the "Kniffling" in Winkelschreiber , "Matthias" in Sonnenwendhof , "Wurm" or "Zanga", but also "Benjamin" in Valentine , appeared repeatedly in antics with Josephine Gallmeyer , and proved to be one of the most reliable Members.

In 1865 he joined the association of the court theater in Hanover. There he made his debut as "Page" in Romeo and Juliet (in the Goethean version) and caused a sensation with the story of Juliet's funeral. Nevertheless, despite his two years of activity, he did not get the right sphere of activity, he was always put off for the death of an excellent character player, but in reality it seems that he was not given much attention just because of his small figure.

The wait became too long for him, however, and so he ran off to Paris in 1866, because he knew that the French were much more lenient with the appearance of the actors, as 60-year-old old women in France played amateur roles with great success. At first he lectured in German in order to eke out life, then he took lessons from Carestie Martel and other first members of the Comédie-Française, and threw himself into the study of French with such extraordinary zeal and indefatigable diligence that he studied it in its entirety In a short time he was able to teach the French language himself. What he learned himself during the day, he taught his students in the evening; he mastered the idiom, which he had never heard of before, so masterfully that he could even speak the French dialect.

In 1867 he undertook to read poems and monologues from French classics to a Paris audience (in the salle Herz ) in a public academy . He spoke a “proverbe” by Alfred de Musset , which was performed at the Burgtheater under the title “Between Door and Angel”, translated by Lilli Lauser , and also: La Ballade du Désespéré by Henri Murger , Scenes from Andromache by Jean Racine and in the end he played Alphonse de Lamartines Jocelyn in the costume of a monk . The venture succeeded beyond all expectations. The audience and critics unanimously agreed that it was a great success. The famous critic Jule Janin wrote that Strakosch had "spoken with a German heart and French lips", and Heinrich Laube , who heard the lecture, also reported in words the greatest praise for the sensational success in the Viennese newspapers, and Strakosch was offered immediately Commitment to tragic lovers at the Odeontheater. However, the artist preferred to temporarily return to Vienna and rest.

At that time he contracted severe tendinitis in one of his fingers. The healing process was slow, and since the hand was likely to be paralyzed, he had to carry his arm in a sling for five years. This would mean the end of his acting career.

He wanted to return to Paris, but Laube, who had come to appreciate him in the meantime and was extremely fond of him, caused him to give up his travel plan and hired him as a lecturer for the Leipzig City Theater, which Laube had taken over as director in 1868 considered particularly advantageous "that a German actor who has systematically gone through the entire French lecture school" would be won.

Strakosch remained Laube's loyal adlatus , his most dutiful colleague, and also followed him to the Vienna City Theater in 1872, for which he hired almost all members without agents, toured all German court and private theaters for this purpose and occasionally, when it seemed necessary, gave actors basic speaking lessons granted.

Rudolf Tyrolt spoke in detail about this then new post of lecturer in his chronicle of the Stadttheater:

"" Laube found that proper speaking was neglected by the German actors. To steer this, a certain speaking instruction is necessary, at least preliminary exercises, which should promote the oral presentation, its purity, clarity, etc. If one wanted to assume the somewhat improbable case that the German actors really had neglected their language and way of speaking, then it is and remains the responsibility of the director to remedy such abuses and mistakes in the rehearsals. Laube admits that he himself had to go through these preparatory exercises with many actors. At the Vienna City Theater, the practical need to save time led him to hire a lecturer or a real role coach. He believed he had found the right personality in Alexander Strakosch. Through a preparatory individual study of the roles with the lecturer, the still artistically less independent or weaker actor should come to the rehearsals to a certain extent finished, and Laube, who now found a good piece of work in the individual, should be given the opportunity, in proportion to finish a piece for performance in a short time. Establishing a repertoire and enriching it as quickly as possible was a need and an urgent necessity for him at the city theater. Since his directors would hardly have allowed themselves to attend such speaking and dramatic home lessons, he entrusted Strakosch with the office appropriate to his practical theater management. ""

- Rudolf Tyrolt : In: Large biographical lexicon of the German stage in the XIX. Century .

Tyrolt also explains why, despite such great effort, despite Strakosch's tireless work, despite his diligent and diligent teaching activity, the results were only sufficient “to satisfy the momentary need for an active theater director, and they turned out to be vanishingly small as soon as it was one lasting and real profit for the dramatic art of representation acted ”. Laube recognized Strakosch's loyal, devoted service and repeatedly spoke in his works of Strakosch's special ability as a speaking teacher, yes he openly admitted in his book “Das Wiener Stadttheater”: “Half of my successes in the Vienna City Theater are due to talent and hard work of the lecturer Alexander Strakosch ”.

After the third time (1880) he undertook his great recitation journeys, which took him all over the world (Austria-Hungary, Germany, Russia, England, Holland, Italy, Turkey, America in 1887 and 1888). Everywhere, through the beauty of the pronunciation, the highly rhythmic melodious sound, the strictest treatment of the verse, through the art of grasping the characteristic of a poem in the broadest sense of the word and translating it into the plastic of the word, it roused to stormy applause.

At home and abroad, feature pages were written about his voice alone. It is also worth mentioning his masterly treatment of the gesture, which the former actor did not deny, and which, as is well known, he dared to use it publicly for the first time in a dramatic presentation.

Among his most famous concert pieces included The Tower scene from the robbers , The Reichstag in Demetrius , the great forum scene from Julius Caesar , Uriel Acosta , and lyric poems, especially the pilgrimage to Kevlaar . Strakosch, who was repeatedly invited to lecture evenings with the family of the imperial Austrian court (1892) and the tsar, was appointed professor at the Academy of Music in Munich in 1888, where he was also responsible for training young talents at the court theater . However, he resigned from this position in 1890 in order to take up a position at the Hofburgtheater, where he stayed until 1898, and twice a year, was chosen to acquire talented young artists on his recitation trips to acquire talent for the Burgtheater. He was also prepared to teach talented young artists whom the director wanted to receive support in the art of speaking. He also worked from 1898 to 1904 as a lecturer at the Deutsches Volkstheater in Vienna. In 1905 he went to Berlin, where he worked at Max Reinhardt 's drama school from 1906 until his death in 1909 .

family

Gravestone of Mika-Maria Strakosch-Freytag in Siebleben

His first wife was the actress Toni Fürst , after whose untimely death he married Anna Fuchs . This marriage lasted until 1890. A "atonement" between Alexander and Anna Strakosch on October 13, 1890 leads to a divorce on November 26, 1890. His daughter Mika-Maria Strakosch-Freytag (1875–1959) comes from this marriage.

Student (selection)

literature

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Ludwig Eisenberg : Large biographical lexicon of the German stage in the XIX. Century . Verlag von Paul List , Leipzig 1903, p. 1006 ff., ( Textarchiv - Internet Archive ).
  2. ↑ Gustav Freytag ( memento from November 10, 2013 in the Internet Archive ) biography at matoni.de

This article is based on a public domain text from Ludwig Eisenberg's Large Biographical Lexicon of the German Stage in the 19th Century , 1903 edition.

Please only remove this note if you have revised the article to such an extent that the text reflects the current state of knowledge on this topic, this has been proven and it meets today's linguistic requirements.
personal data
SURNAME Strakosch, Alexander
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Austrian theater actor and reciter
DATE OF BIRTH December 3, 1845
PLACE OF BIRTH Sebes near Eperies , Kingdom of Hungary
DATE OF DEATH 17th September 1909
Place of death Berlin , German Empire