Budapest Orpheum
The Budapest Orpheum , initially the Budapest Orpheum Society , was founded in 1889 by MB Lautzky as organizational director and Josef Modl as artistic director. The group had its premiere on June 27, 1889 in the Vienna "Hotel zum Schwarzen Adler".
The ensemble consisting of singers and comedians , which from the beginning also performed cabaret -like one-act plays , had its own venue from 1891. The Budapest Orpheum was a so-called “jargon stage” that cultivated a variety of popular culture, the characters of which largely came from a Viennese-Jewish, urban milieu.
The most outstanding feature of the Budapest Orpheum was the presentation of Jewish jargon humor. These were entertaining songs or one-act plays that were performed in Yiddish- tinged Viennese , which was also called "Jewish" as a dialect form. For this, the Budapest Orpheum garnered great audience approval, but also great rejection, especially from the Jewish side. The most frequent allegations were to reinforce or even provoke anti-Semitic prejudices and to deface the German language.
The most influential actors in the ensemble were Ferdinand Grünecker in the initial phase and then the long-time director Heinrich Eisenbach . The Orpheum in Budapest also produced many celebrated comedians and cabaret artists as well as lyricists and composers such as Armin Berg , Hans Moser , Max Rott , Armin Springer , Theodor Wottitz , Louis Taufstein , Robert Stolz , Konrad Scherber and Paula Walden .
history
Founding and traveling years 1889–1891
The Budapest Orpheum Society was founded in 1889 by music halls - concessionaire Bernhard Lautzky launched to replace the popular singer Josefine Schmer find whose performances he organized and their contract expired 1889th He wanted to look for suitable entertainers in Budapest , which at that time had a flourishing cabaret scene - consisting of many variety theaters and cabaret theaters - in order to perform a guest performance with them in the Viennese establishments in July 1889. During this search he came across Josef Modl , an expert on the entertainment scene in Budapest. He joined forces with this, with Modl taking over the artistic and Lautzky the organizational management. After they had put together a troupe - consisting of " 3 women and 5 men " - and started rehearsing for the summer, they called their ensemble the Budapest Orpheum Society, since the artists and the Budapesters came from Budapest - 40% of them were German-speaking at the time The entertainment scene as the “Budapest Orpheum” - named after the Orpheen in Budapest as the larger venues for folk singers, comedians and actors - enjoyed a good reputation in Vienna.
On June 27, 1889, the Budapest Orpheum Society made its first appearance in the Hotel zum Schwarzen Adler at Taborstrasse 11 in Leopoldstadt . The eight-person ensemble consisted of the singers Louise and Anna Württemberg as well as Ilona Kovác , the dance and singing artists and comedians Benjamin Blaß and Max Rott (who appeared as the "Rott brothers"), the comedian Josef Walzl , the pianist MO Schlesinger and Josef Modl himself .
After the performances in July met with great public interest, the company extended its “guest performance” in Vienna for a further month and then several times until the “guest performance” lasted two years. During this time, many well-known domestic and foreign vaudeville artists completed two to four-week guest performances with "the Budapesters", as the ensemble was soon called. Some of them were also included in the ensemble. These were 1889 Girardi - impersonator Karl Baumann , the comedian and Intermezzist (entertainers during the breaks between two pieces) Kiß Arpad , the singer Juliska Bihary , the singing comedian and " Melophon -Virtuose" Emil skock , the singer Josefine Ernauer , called "the fesche Pepi ”, the comedian and mimic Sami Neumann and the singer Gisela Kallay . In 1890 the costume soubrette Bertha Bertholdo , the comedian Rudolf Röhrich and the singers Mariska Banfy and Marietta Jolly were added.
The same year saw the first major transformation of society. After Josef Modl was poached to the Ronacher establishment at the end of 1889 or beginning of 1890 , the ensemble was greatly reduced in size and repositioned on August 4, 1890. Except for the Rott brothers, no one was left of the founding ensemble. The other members of the now seven-member ensemble were Kiß Arpad and Marietta Jolly, who were recorded last year, and the singers Malvine Billanhyi , Gizi Kallay and comedian A. Müller as newcomers .
The ensemble was not limited to seven members for long. On September 1, 1890, Adolf Bergmann made his debut with the Budapesters, who as an author had Eine Partie Klabrias premiered in the Café Spitzer on November 8th - the Jewish jargon play that made it very famous throughout the German-speaking area and more than 5,000 times by 1925 was performed. In the same year the comedian and director Ferdinand Grünecker - Marietta Jolly's husband - the Hungarian singer Margit Dallos , the duettists Waldheim siblings, the Budapest comedian Karl Kasnan , the comedian and actor Karl Hornau and his wife Kathi as well as the young comedian came Jaques Keller to the Budapesters.
The bond between the ensemble members, however, was not exclusive. Most of the members performed outside of the formation when given the opportunity. The bond to a society, however, brought them an existential security in an otherwise from performance to performance artist. The individual programs of the artists - various songs and comical stories or plays - were always just one of many items in a full-length entertainment program.
The appearances of the “Budapesters” in the first two years took place in almost all of Vienna's restaurants serving as popular singing stages, some of which were regularly played. For example the Hotel zum Schwarzen Adler in Leopoldstadt, the Hotel Zillinger auf der Wieden and the Zur Breze restaurant in Neulerchenfeld . From December 1890, the management of the Hotel zum Schwarzen Adler engaged the “Budapesters” for four days a week due to their large audience attraction: Monday, Tuesday, Thursday and Sunday as well as public holidays. From May 11th, 1891 daily performances and the hotel became the first permanent venue of the Budapest Orpheum Society.
Initially, the ensemble was announced as the Lautzky Singspielhalle - Budapest Orpheum Society . Soon, however, the troupe was only called the “Budapest Orpheum” or, even shorter, “the Budapesters”.
In the hotel "Zum Schwarzen Adler", 1891–1896
May 11, 1891 was the starting point of a five-year commitment by the company to the “Zum Schwarzen Adler” hotel. Its managing director, Sigmund Spitzer, became - alongside Lautzky - the second director of the Orpheum Society. In the same year, Ferdinand Grünecker, who is now well known and loved by the public as a director and actor, took over the artistic direction of the company. He gradually transformed the society, which had hitherto mainly consisted of folk singers, into a jargon stage. Interrupted by a guest performance with his wife in Berlin from late 1892 to July 1893, he directed the stage until the end of 1894. Despite the ties to the hotel, the ensemble still gave performances in other restaurants in the city.
After a big antics evening - consisting of four one-act acts - was held for the first time on February 11, 1891, to the greatest pleasure of the public, the antics repertoire increased in importance and soon became the main component of the performances of the Orpheum Society. They pushed back the previously predominant solo numbers and couplets.
In 1891 changes were made to the ensemble again. The singing and dance comedians, the Joseffy brothers, were included, as were the duettists Malvine and Sophie Vilany. In 1892 the singers Ella Leopold , Anna Violetta , Alexandrine Helm , Auguste Thalberg and Franz Kuppetz , the comedians Friedrich Singer and Wilhelm Adolfi as well as the costume soubrette Mizzi Gizzi, who was recruited from Danzer's Orpheum , joined the ensemble , which now has around 20 members added.
In June 1893, the hotel's evening restaurant was expanded into a large theater hall with a stage. The ensemble went on a tour through Austria-Hungary. After the renovation was completed, the entrance fees were also increased. Instead of the previous 30 to 50 Kreuzer admission, the cheapest ticket for the ground floor now cost 40 Kreuzer, a reserved seat 60 Kreuzer, a box seat one guilder and a whole box 5 guilders. The program cost 10 cruisers. Compared to theaters established in higher strata of the population, such as the Etablissement Ronacher , where 80 cruisers were charged for the cheapest ticket, the prices were still around half cheaper. At the reopening on July 1st, Josef Modl, who meanwhile made a career in the said "Ronacher", was present as a guest performer.
A decisive year for the further development of the Budapest was in 1894, when, in addition to the singers Lilly Andersen and Alla Alberti and the actor Josef Eskreis, the comedian Josef Bauer, the humorist Bernhard Liebel and Anna and Heinrich Eisenbach joined the ensemble as dance duettists.
As before, the Budapest Orpheum Society was characterized by a lively change in the numerous guest appearances. Every few weeks, the guest performances alternated between one and several weeks. Such guest artists were the “Leonormand and Leonora specialties” for a few weeks in 1891, who performed “thought transmissions” with the involvement of the audience, and in 1892 the “electrical demonstrators” offered “Mr. Georges and Eveline ”, the duetists Andy and Pepi Keßler and Mr. Girardo, who imitated famous composers both characteristically and musically, made several guest appearances. In 1894 the five-year-old “memory artist” Bertha Sandtner, Mr. A. Dawson with his trained dogs, the female caricaturist Gaston de Brie and the artist and dancer Rudolphe Wallno provided a variety-like change in the evening programs, which are dominated by singing and acting.
One-off guest appearances, namely on special occasions, were offered in 1892 by the German-Hungarian singer Olga Coppelia together with the singing humorist Ferdinand Semmel and the animal voice imitator Charley Pauly on the charity evening of the actor and Orpheum Society secretary Anton Rheders , and for the "annual benefit " Ferdinand Grüneckers In addition to ensemble members, the singer and dancer of the Ronacher Ferrike Horvath and the quick-change artist Mac Hellier .
After 1896
In 1896 the ensemble moved to the Hotel Stephanie opposite and in 1903 to the Hotel Central , also on Taborstrasse. Finally, in 1913, a performance venue was set up at Praterstrasse 25 and opened as the Budapest Orpheum . The Max & Moritz in St. Annahof , which has housed Eisenbach's ensemble since 1915 and which has since given it its name, opened in 1910. Even after the war, the Max & Moritz was a stage that defined itself as Jewish, using Jewish as a code for comic effects.
The ensemble was active until 1938 with different cast and after several name changes.
reception
"The only real theater pleasure [...] that Vienna has to offer today after Girardi ."
“They were called the Budapesters because they originally consisted of all Budapesters and because the theater in which they performed their pranks and solos was originally in Budapest. Incidentally, at that time, in 1914, one of the three one-act plays of the program was also played in German in Budapest, or, to put it more cautiously: in that means of communication reminiscent of German that the Moravian-Ugric cultural group had agreed on with the Viennese religious community - and that was just as far removed from correct Yiddish, as it was spoken in the east of the monarchy, as from correct German. It was a distinct jargon, limited to very specific strata of the landscape and society, which was often only understood in Prague with the help of a Brno interpreter and which was no less despised in Hietzing, and indeed in the better Israelite circles of the ninth district than in Lemberg or Chernivtsi (albeit for different reasons). "
Premieres
In the history of the Budapest Orpheum Society, there were numerous one-act antics , most of which came from the "house authors" Josef Armin , Adolf Glinger , Louis Taufstein and Otto Taussig , but also from other ensemble members and other stage authors . The following is a selection of the premieres that took place as part of a performance at the Budapest Orpheum:
- 1890: A game of Klabrias in Café Spitzer (text: Adolf Bergmann ), Posse
- 1891: The main hit (Text: Heinrich Grüne ), Posse
- 1892: Stories from Hernals (text: Josef Armin), life picture
- 1892: Turf'gschichten (text: Josef Armin, music: MO Schlesinger), comedy
- 1892: Billing in the country (Text: Josef Armin), Posse
- 1892: The ogre (text: Josef Armin), life picture
- 1894: Die Obersteiger (Text: Josef Philippi), farce with singing, parody of Obersteiger by Karl Zeller
- 1894: Chaim Katz from Karmeliterplatz (text: Josef Armin), scene from popular life
- 1894: The Daughters of Captain Brand (Text: Josef Armin), Singspiel
- 1894: Fanfani Pascha (text: Bela Duschak ), singing burlesque
- 1894: On the high seas (text: Anton Groiß , music: G. Richter), operetta
- 1900: The Herr Doctor (text: Louis Taufstein), comedy
literature
- Georg Wacks: The Budapest Orpheum Society. A vaudeville theater in Vienna 1889–1919. Foreword by Gerhard Bronner . Holzhausen, Vienna 2002, ISBN 3-85493-054-2 . (At the same time diploma thesis entitled The Budapest Orpheum Society. An Institutional History , University of Music and Performing Arts, Vienna 1999, OBV ).
- Christopher Langer: The Jewish thing about the Budapest Orpheum Society . Thesis. University of Graz, Graz 2015. - Full text online (PDF; 0.9 MB) .
Individual evidence
- ↑ Simon Usaty: “O Tempora O Zores. The Austrian-Jewish cabaret artist Armin Berg ” . Thesis. University of Vienna, Vienna 2008, p. 5. - Full text online (PDF; 3.2 MB) .
- ↑ Usaty, p. 112.
- ^ Wacks, p. 40.
- ^ Wacks, p. 50.
- ↑ Illustrated Wiener Extrablatt , Wiener Lustungsanzeiger, June 27, 1889; In: Wacks, p. 8
- ^ Wacks, pp. 6-11
- ^ Wacks, p. 19
- ^ Wacks, p. 23
- ^ Wacks, p. 29
- ^ Wacks, p. 36
- ^ Wacks, pp. 8-12
- ↑ Usaty, passim .
- ↑ Die Fackel No. 324-325, June 2, 1911, p. 23: "Distanzen"
- ^ Friedrich Torberg : The Budapest. (Original from Die Tante Jolesch , chapter Hans Moser , 1978). In: Ruth Beckermann (Ed.): The Mazzesinsel. Jews in Vienna's Leopoldstadt 1918–1938 . Fourth edition. Löcker, Vienna 1992, ISBN 3-85409-068-4 , p. 86.
Remarks
- ↑ 1927: Max and Moritz Ensemble, formerly Heinrich Eisenbach's Budapest Orpheum Society . - See: Hans Moser at the Baden City Theater. In: Badener Zeitung , No. 43/1927 (XLVIII. Volume), May 28, 1927, p. 4, top left. (Online at ANNO ). .