Ernst Pittschau (actor, 1859)

Ernst Pittschau (born November 10, 1859 in Egeln , Germany , † November 19, 1916 in Vienna , Austria-Hungary ) was a German stage actor .

Live and act

The farmer's son, who was born near Magdeburg , went straight to the theater after graduating from secondary school without having had any training in acting. On December 25, 1878, Ernst Pittschau made his debut with Reinhardt in the play Dorf und Stadt at the theater in Aschersleben . After two years at insignificant provincial theaters, Pittschau came to the Stadttheater von Altona (now part of Hamburg ) in 1882 . He not only stayed there for a year, but also became the father of a son, the later theater and film actor Ernst Pittschau . In 1883, Pittschau senior was brought to the Göttingen City Theater in the role of First Hero and Lover . In 1885 he came to the theater in Halle (Saale) , where Pittschau made his debut with Goethe's Egmont . The next stage was the Lobe Theater in Wroclaw . It was here that the theater maker Adolph L'Arronge became aware of the young artist and engaged him for a guest performance by Wilhelm Tell at the Deutsche Theater Berlin, which he founded . After ten years, Ernst Pittschau moved to the ensemble of the Berlin Theater in 1897, also located in the Reich capital. Here he made his debut with lordly roles: Pittschau embodied both a pope and an emperor. Another year later, in June 1898, he gave a much-noticed guest performance at Vienna's Hofburgtheater .

Like Ludwig Eisenberg's Great Biographical Lexicon of the German Stage in the XIX. Noted in the 19th century , his role was characterized by Pittschau's “heavy, bulky appearance” combined with “a certain sluggishness”. His parade roles up to the turn of the century included his pastor Gang, Junker Tobias in Shakespeare's Was ihr wollt , Hermann in Kleist's Die Hermannsschlacht , Götz von Berlichingen in the Goethe play of the same name, Shakespeare's Falstaff , Count Kattwald in Grillparzer's comedy Weh dem, der lies! , the elector in Kleist's drama The Prince of Homburg and The Judge of Zalamea in the Calderón drama of the same name. Ernst Pittschau spent the last years of his life in Vienna, where he worked at the Burgtheater for up to eleven years, beginning on September 19, 1905, with Prince von Kortwitz in Der Prinz von Homburg . Already seriously ill, Pittschau was appointed court actor in September 1916. "A certain heaviness and weight characterize his acting character" as the Neue Freie Presse stated in an obituary on November 20, 1916.

Pittschau's second son was the actor Werner Pittschau, who died early .

literature

• Ludwig Eisenberg : Large biographical lexicon of the German stage in the XIX. Century . Verlag von Paul List , Leipzig 1903, p. 772, ( Textarchiv - Internet Archive ).
• Paul S. Ulrich: Biographical Index for Theater, Dance and Music / Biographical Index for Theater, Dance and Music. Volume II. M-Z., P. 1432. Berlin Verlag. Arno Spitz GmbH. 1997. ISBN 978-3-87061-479-9
• Deutsches Theater-Lexikon, Biographical and Bibliographical Handbook, founded by Wilhelm Kosch, continued by Ingrid Bigler-Marschall. Volume III, Pallenberg-Singer, 1992. p. 1770

Web link

• Obituary in the Neue Freie Presse