Imre Kiralfy
Imre Kiralfy , also Imre Konigsbaum , (born January 1, 1845 in Pest , † April 27, 1919 in Brighton ) was an impresario and event manager of Hungarian origin . He and his brother Bolossy became famous under the name Kiralfy brothers , with other family members also contributing to the joint dance troupe and festival production.
Early years
Imre Kiralfy was the eldest of seven children of the textile manufacturer Jacob Konigsbaum and his wife Anna Rosa Weisberger. The family was wealthy and of Jewish origin. The father Jacob Konigsbaum was a prominent supporter of the Hungarian Revolution of 1848/1849 and only narrowly escaped arrest by the Austrian authorities. As a result, the family business went bankrupt and the family became impoverished.
Kiralfy showed talent for music, art and especially dance at an early age. At the age of four he made his stage debut as a Hungarian folk dancer in Carl Maria von Weber's Preciosa under the name Kiralfy . The entire family adopted this name, also to disguise the relationship with the revolutionary father. A few years later, Imre Kiralfy appeared before the Prussian King Friedrich Wilhelm IV . Imre Kiralfys younger brother Bolossy (1848-1932) soon appeared together with his brother; the mother managed the careers of her sons, who toured major cities in Germany and Austria and were considered child prodigies . Later the other siblings performed together with the brothers; the sisters Haniola, Emile and Katie as well as the youngest brother Arnold joined the dance troupe of Imre and Bolossy. Only one brother, Ronald, stayed apart. When Imre Kiralfy was eight years old, he first wanted to be a magician , but then he decided on music, learned the piano and violin and composed. He was 14 when an orchestra in Milan played one of his compositions.
In 1867 Imre Kiralfy visited the World Exhibition on the Champ de Mars in Paris , which inspired him to choose a career as an organizer. The following year he jumped in at short notice in Brussels as the organizer of a week-long city festival with a variety of events from opera, theater and sports; he was supported by 4,000 soldiers in the implementation.
In the USA
Although the event in Brussels was a success, Kiralfy saw no future for his plans in Europe and went to the United States in 1869 , where he stayed for the next 25 years. In 1872 he married the Englishwoman Marie Graham (1851-1942) in New York , they had nine children. In 1876 the Kiralfy brothers built the Alhambra Palace (later South Broad Street Theater ) in Philadelphia , where they produced their performances for several years. In the USA, Kiralfy staged other large-scale scenic performances such as The Black Crook , Round the World in 80 Days after Jules Verne , The Life of Columbus for the World's Columbian Exposition , which was on view for around two years after the exhibition ended. In the Chicago Auditorium he showed the show 400 years of American History , which in connection with the Columbian Exposition in 1893 for the four hundredth anniversary of the landing Columbus grossed over a million dollars in around seven and a half months. Other shows by Kiralfy were The Fall of Babylon and Nero and the Burning of Rome and Our Naval Victories in New York in 1889, 1898 and Women of all Nations (1900) and China, or the Relief of the Legations in 1901. Kiralfy let in for Nero Build open-air theater on Staten Island . In the USA he also got to know PT Barnum and produced with him, among other things, Nero and the Burning of Rome in London .
In England
Imre Kiralfy then moved to England, where he became director of London Exhibitions Limited and organized other major spectacles. So he organized a permanent exhibition in Shepherd's Bush and built a mini Venice in Olympia to demonstrate what machine power, water and electricity can do. The Earls Court Exhibition Ground was modernized and exhibitions such as Empire of India , India and Ceylon , The Victorian Era , The Universal Exhibition , Greater Britain , Woman’s , International , The Military Exhibition , Paris in London and the Imperial Austrian Exhibition followed .
About 1905 corresponded to the Earls Court no longer the ideas of Kiralfy, and he planned with his son the extended Great White City in Shepherd's Bush . Palatial white buildings in the oriental style were erected and opened for the Franco-British Exhibition in 1908 ; the exhibition should document the entente cordiale between the two countries. The site comprised 20 palaces and 120 other exhibition buildings on around 570,000 square meters, which were built by 120,000 workers. The exhibition attracted more than eight million visitors. The English King Edward VII and the French President Armand Fallières visited the exhibition together, and Imre Kiralfy later wrote in his autobiography:
- “I knew that the result had justified all the labor. That was the proudest day of my life. "(Eng." I knew that the result justified all the work. It was the proudest day of my life. ")
The 1908 Olympic Games also took place in the “White City”, for which a corresponding stadium was built. Kiralfy's son Edgar took part in these Olympic Games as a runner over 100 meters. In 1910 a five-month Japanese-British Exhibition took place in the White City and in 1914 the British-American Exhibition .
The outbreak of World War I marked the end of Kiralfy's endeavors. In 1919 he died of a heart attack and was buried in a mausoleum in Kensal Green Cemetery . In 1921 his widow had the body cremated and in 1924 laid it to rest in a further mausoleum in Green-Wood Cemetery in New York .
Individual evidence
- ↑ a b c d e f Imre Kiralfy: My Reminiscences on studygroup.org.uk ( Memento of the original from August 22, 2014 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
- ↑ a b c "Imre Kiralfy dead in England". In: New York Times , April 29, 1919
- ↑ The Jews of Philadelphia: their history from the earliest settlements to the present time; a record of events and institutions, and of leading members of the Jewish community in every sphere of activity (1894), Henry S. Morays, Philadelphia, The Levytype Co. , pp. 382-383
- ^ A Double Drove of Acting Elephants. The Greatest in Both Numbers and Intelligence. on blogs.princeton.edu
- ↑ Memories of The Great White City on bbc.co.uk v. May 7, 2008
- ↑ The Junior Spinning Champion of Ireland and the Entente Cordiale on irishhistoricaltextiles.com v. March 26, 2012 ( Memento of the original from September 21, 2013 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
- ↑ Imre Kiralfy on meiji-portraits.de
- ↑ Edgar Kiralfy in the database of Sports-Reference (English)
- ↑ Photographic Exhibition and Other Events to Mark the 100th Anniversary of the 1910 Japan-British Exhibition on .uk.emb-japan.go.jp
- ↑ Find Imre Kiralfy's Mausoleum at tiredoflondontiredoflife.com
- ↑ Imre Kiralfy on grahamowen.com ( Memento of the original from September 21, 2013 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
Web links
- Kiralfy, Imre at 20thcenturylondon.org.uk
- Imre Kiralfy: My Reminiscences on studygroup.org.uk
- Imre Kiralfy in the Jewish Encyclopedia (1905)
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Kiralfy, Imre |
| ALTERNATIVE NAMES | King tree, Imre (real name) |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | Impresario and event manager |
| DATE OF BIRTH | January 1, 1845 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | pest |
| DATE OF DEATH | April 27, 1919 |
| Place of death | Brighton |