Erich von Wymetal

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Erich Wymetal's grave

Erich Otto Ritter von Wymetal ( September 16, 1892 in Brno - January 28, 1966 in Vienna ) was an Austrian actor and director who worked at the Vienna State Opera for twenty years .

life and work

Erich von Wymetal was the son of the actor and theater director Wilhelm von Wymetal (1863-1937) and the younger brother of the later choreographer and director Wilhelm (1890-1970).

He graduated from the cadet school in Mährisch-Weißkirchen and initially became a dragoon officer. After the end of the First World War he trained as an actor and was subsequently hired as a character comedian at the stages in Klagenfurt and Salzburg. His career as a director began at the Stadttheater Troppau. From 1933 to 1936 he staged operas at the Aussig City Theater. In 1936 he was hired as a game director and director at the Vienna State Opera , on which his father also worked. At that time, Lothar Wallerstein was the chief stage director of the State Opera . For Erich von Wymetal, the schedule lists mainly directing services and game directors, but he has also been given a few new productions - rather unknown operas by Wolf-Ferrari , Salmhofer and Bizet .

Wymetal was in no contradiction to the Nazi regime. Immediately after the so-called Anschluss of Austria , on March 13, 1938, Lothar Wallenstein was relieved of his position as senior director of the Vienna State Opera by the National Socialists and banned from the house. His successor was called Erich von Wymetal. Because of his Jewish ancestors, Wallerstein could no longer find work in any theater in the German Reich and had to emigrate. When the Wallenstein productions of Fidelio and Rosenkavalier were shown at the Salzburg Festival in the summer of the same year , Erich von Wymetal acted as director in the programs as well as in the Meistersinger production by Herbert Graf . The authorship of both actual directors was concealed. On February 2, 1939, Wymetal also staged the first world premiere of the State Opera after the so-called Anschluss: Königsballade , a three-act opera with a text by Otto Emmerich Groh and music by Rudolf Wille. Groh had been appointed by the National Socialists as the stage director of the German People's Theater in Vienna. The subject of the opera was dedicated to a Germanic myth, the Norwegian King Harald Hårfager .

As senior director, Wymetal secured two more central new productions: in 1939 the new Fidelio under Hans Knappertsbusch and in 1940 the Vienna premiere of Daphne by Richard Strauss . He continued to work in the post-war years and in 1950 staged a new Eugene Onegin in the alternative quarter of the bombed-out State Opera, in the Theater an der Wien .

In the 1950s he directed the opera class at the Vienna Conservatory .

His brother Wilhelm emigrated and worked at the New York Met , in Philadelphia and Pittsburgh, and in Hollywood .

Wymetal was buried in the urn grove of the Simmering fire hall (Department 7, Ring 3, Group 9, Number 19) in Vienna.

Productions at the Vienna State Opera (selection)

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Andreas Novak: Salzburg hears Hitler breathing , The Salzburg Festival 1933-1944, Munich: Dt. Verl.-Anst. 2005, ISBN 3-421-05883-0 , pp. 102, 151 and 155
  2. ^ Otto Emmerich Groh in the Vienna History Wiki of the City of Vienna
  3. ↑ Erich von Wymetal's appearances at the Vienna State Opera
    There are obviously also 22 performances of Fidelio from the years 1909 to 1915 entered by mistake .
personal data
SURNAME Wymetal, Erich von
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Wymetal, Erich Otto Ritter von (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Austrian actor and director
DATE OF BIRTH September 16, 1892
PLACE OF BIRTH Brno
DATE OF DEATH January 28, 1966
Place of death Vienna