Bernhard Mortier

Bernhard Mortier , called Börner (before 1810 - April 1854 in Hamburg ) was a stage actor , comedian and singer ( bass ).

Life

Mortier devoted himself to the stage after friends and acquaintances noticed his beautiful bass voice. He found his first major engagement in 1827 as a bass player and comedian at the Hoftheater in Hanover. From his comic roles he achieved an incomparable "cluck" at the Festival of Craftsmen , a play that was one of the favorite performances on every stage at the time.

He gained almost fame as a "Kluck" actor and in this role he made guest appearances on the most important stages with extraordinary success. He played 70 times in a row in Vienna and made a real triumphal procession through Austria with this piece. It was hard to believe that Börner the bass player and Börner the “Kluck” actor were one and the same personality. In 1834, after further art trips, he took on an engagement with Friedrich Ludwig Schmidt in Hamburg, where he made his debut as "Knieriem" in Lumpaci with extraordinary success.

His restless spirit soon drove him away from there, and it roamed the whole world, at large and small theaters with its "Kluck" oscillating. He stayed in Petersburg for a long time until Chéri Maurice managed to lure him back to Hamburg. And he actually stayed there for several years.

When he had turned his back on Hamburg again, he tried his luck again on various stages until he came back to Hamburg again to stay there until his death. He ended his unsteady life in April 1854.

It is strange that he would have loved to play great tragic roles. So it was his unmatched wish to appear as "Lear". The term "Kluck" player was repugnant to his soul. If Mortier had had diligence and perseverance in addition to his great talent, he could have become one of the most outstanding comedians on the German stage. In all of his performances, in the end he only appeared as a comedian, nature was more important to him than anything else, and even if the history of German theater was not allowed to devote a glorious paper to him, his humor, wit and comedy gave him thousands prepares the happiest hours.

literature

• Ludwig Eisenberg : Large biographical lexicon of the German stage in the XIX. Century . Verlag von Paul List , Leipzig 1903, p. 691, ( Textarchiv - Internet Archive ).

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.

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