Egon Pollak (conductor)

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Egon Pollak (born on May 3, 1879 in Prague , Austria-Hungary ; died on June 14, 1933 in Prague) was a Czech conductor and general music director of the Hamburg State Opera from 1922 to 1931 .

life and work

Pollak first studied mathematics at the Technical University of Darmstadt and at the Georg-August University of Göttingen . Then - under the influence of his father - he is said to have lost interest in studying and was finally trained as a conductor by Kittel, the director of the Prague Conservatory .

In 1901 he got his first job as choir conductor at the New German Theater in Prague and was Leo Blech's assistant . In 1905 he became the first opera conductor in Bremen, and in 1910 in Leipzig. From 1912 to 1917 he worked at the Frankfurt Opera House . In August 1917, Pollak followed a call as musical director at the Stadttheater in Hamburg (from 1934 Hamburg State Opera), which was run by a private company until 1919 and has now received state subsidies. In 1919 the house was converted into a pure music theater, and in 1922 Pollak was appointed general music director. The 1920s were marked on the one hand by economic difficulties due to the inflationary period at the Stadttheater, on the other hand by the construction of the new stage and a number of proven performances, new productions and guest performances. On April 12, 1920, at the same time as Otto Klemperer in Cologne, he conducted the world premiere of Korngold's Die tote Stadt . Pollak was considered a Wagner specialist and was particularly well received for his conducting by Smetana's Bartered Bride , Janáček Jenůfa (1926) and Wagner's Ring des Nibelungen (1927). Together with the artistic director of the Stadttheater, Leopold Sachse , he endeavored to maintain a consistently high standard and to renew the program. In Hamburg he also worked as a concert conductor. For example, in 1927 he performed the Concerto for Two Pianos and Orchestra by Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach in an arrangement by Heinrich Schenker .

In 1929, the Great Depression and competition from other music stages in Hamburg troubled the city theater and the number of visitors fell. When Pollak performed with Beethoven's Fidelio and the Wagner operas Tannhauser , Lohengrin , Meistersinger von Nürnberg and Walküre at the Chicago Civic Opera Company (now the Lyric Opera of Chicago ) in the 1930/31 season , including important German-speaking singers such as Lotte Lehmann , Frieda Leider and Hans Hermann Nissen , the National Socialist Hamburger Tageblatt sparked violent polemics. "The reason was not the guest performances, but the fact that the city theater with Pollak and Leopold Sachse was directed by a Jewish directorate."

"It was not without bitterness that P. turned his back on the Hanseatic city." He canceled his contract in June 1931 and moved to Chicago as opera director. However, the hope of gaining a solid foothold there was dashed: The Chicago Opera stopped its performance at the end of the year for financial reasons. Pollak made a guest appearance in the Soviet Union in the winter of 1932 and subsequently conducted a guest performance by the Vienna State Opera in Cairo and Alexandria. On May 30, 1932, he conducted his last performance in Hamburg: The Taming of the Shrew by Hermann Goetz . After a series of guest performances at the Vienna State Opera, Pollak emigrated to Czechoslovakia and was appointed chief conductor of the German Theater in Prague.

Pollak died of a heart attack on June 14, 1933 during a Fidelio performance.

Quote

“I can still see him in front of me, in which sensual force and spiritual grace, an uncanny accuracy of the word fascinatingly paired. We had an extremely calm, inwardly tense conversation that touched on the importance of the race question for the practice of art for underlying reasons. Pollak was there, he felt it, already in defensive position on German soil. "

- Herman Roth : Hamburger Nachrichten , June 15, 1933

swell

  • Ortin Pelc: Pollak, Egon , The Jewish Hamburg. A historical reference work, accessed August 22, 2015
  • Hannes Heer ; Jürgen Kesting ; Peter Schmidt : Silent voices: the Bayreuth Festival and the "Jews" from 1876 to 1945; an exhibition . Bayreuth Festival Park and New Town Hall Exhibition Hall Bayreuth, July 22 to October 14, 2012. Berlin: Metropol, 2012 ISBN 978-3-86331-087-5 , 55
  • Werner Röder; Herbert A. Strauss (Ed.): International Biographical Dictionary of Central European Emigrés 1933–1945 . Volume 2.2. Munich: Saur, 1983 ISBN 3-598-10089-2 , p. 916

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Hannes Heer ; Jürgen Kesting ; Peter Schmidt : Silent voices: the Bayreuth Festival and the "Jews" from 1876 to 1945; an exhibition . Bayreuth Festival Park and New Town Hall Exhibition Hall Bayreuth, July 22 to October 14, 2012. Berlin: Metropol, 2012 ISBN 978-3-86331-087-5 , 55
  2. ^ Ortin Pelc: Pollak, Egon , Das Jüdische Hamburg. A historical reference work, accessed August 22, 2015
  3. ↑ Silenced Voices - The expulsion of the "Jews" from the opera 1933 to 1945 . Retrieved August 23, 2015.
  4. ↑ Susanne Blume Berger, Michael Doppelhofer, Gabriele Mauthe: Manual Austrian authors of Jewish origin 18th to 20th century. Volume 2: J-R. Edited by the Austrian National Library. Saur, Munich 2002, ISBN 3-598-11545-8 , p. 1055 ( limited preview in Google book search).
personal data
SURNAME Pollak, Egon
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Czech conductor
DATE OF BIRTH May 3, 1879
PLACE OF BIRTH Prague
DATE OF DEATH June 14, 1933
Place of death Prague