Anton Genast

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The Weimar Court Theater around 1800

Anton Genast , actually Anton Kynast , (* 1763 in Trachenberg , Silesia , † March 4, 1831 in Weimar ) was a German actor and opera singer (tenor).

Life

Anton was born in 1763 as the son of the steward Kynast, who served with Prince von Hatzfeld . He was considered the most talented of the numerous siblings. Against his will, he was sent to the Jesuit school in Krakow and, at the request of his parents, was to become a priest.

At the age of 20 he returned to Trachtenberg, where there were violent arguments with his father because he relentlessly wanted him to take up the position of chaplain. Anton Genast secretly fled from his parents' house to become an actor in Breslau . However, the local theater turned him away and so Genast joined a theater troupe that was guesting in Bunzlau , from which he received a weekly fee of one thaler. His name appeared there for the first time as Genast on the written theater slips.

In the following four years he changed touring stages several times, sang and played in all kinds of subjects until, by chance, in 1786 he came to Prague to see Karl Friedrich Wahr, who was the director of the German theater there. Karl Friedrich Wahr, himself a great actor, took care of him and instructed him in representation and declamation .

At the Prague theater he also met with Italian opera singers under the direction of impresarios Domenico Guardasoni , with whom he had a good conversation thanks to his knowledge of Italian. He even got to know Mozart through the singer Bassi, for whom Don Giovanni was written .

His tenor voice prompted Karl Friedrich Wahr to use his pupil in the German Singspiel as tenor buffo. In this subject he was also engaged in Weimar in 1791. On the way there, he visited his parents in order to successfully bring about a reconciliation.

After a few years in Weimar he was appointed director at the Weimar Court Theater under the direction of Johann Wolfgang von Goethe , which he shared with Heinrich Becker every week. Goethe and Friedrich Schiller valued him as a director very highly.

"He had so thought into and settled into the intentions of the former, whose absolute trust he possessed and kept himself incessantly, that he usually guessed what the master wanted and wished before his mouth uttered it."

- WGGotthardi : Weimar theater pictures from Goethe's time

Anton Genast worked at the Weimar Court Theater until his retirement on April 1, 1817, just as long as Goethe. He died on March 4, 1831. Contrary to his father's initial wishes, his son Eduard Franz Genast entered acting late but successfully.

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personal data
SURNAME Healed, Anton
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Kynast, Anton (real name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German actor and opera singer (tenor)
DATE OF BIRTH 1763
PLACE OF BIRTH Trachenberg , Silesia
DATE OF DEATH March 4, 1831
Place of death Weimar