Johann Heinrich Böhm (actor)

Johann Heinrich Böhm (* 1740 in Upper Austria , † 1792 in Aachen ) was an Austrian actor , singer , director and theater director .

Live and act

There are hardly any records about the early years of Johann Heinrich Böhm, who evidently grew up and trained in the Viennese theater tradition. He is mentioned for the first time in 1770 as an actor in the theater group of the principal Kajetan von Schaumburg in Brno , whose troupe he took over in September of the same year. With this traveling theater Böhm went on trips in the next few years, trying to raise the level with less burlesque performances. In 1776 Böhm first appeared at the Kärntnertortheater in Vienna , where he worked with Jean Georges Noverre , among others , and two years later at the Vienna Burgtheater on Michaelerplatz , where he also appeared as an actor, singer and director.

From 1778 Böhm went on trips again with his theater troupe, which also had their own orchestra, first to Salzburg , where he met Leopold Mozart , who gave him great recognition for his performance. During this time, a lifelong friendship developed with Leopold's son Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart , who composed the fragmentary Singspiel Zaide (KV 344 / 366b) for him in 1779 . A year later, Böhm made a guest appearance in Augsburg , where in May he performed Mozart's opera La finta giardiniera in the German translation by Franz Xaver Stierle under the title Die Verstellte Gärtnerin .

After several intermediate stops in Ulm , Nuremberg and Kassel , among others , the Böhmsche Theatertruppe moved to the Rhineland , where on February 10, 1783, they opened the new privileged comedy house in Lubricating Street in Cologne with the performance of Shakespeare's drama Richard II . On the occasion of the opening of the Koblenz Theater on November 22, 1787, Böhm performed Mozart's The Abduction from the Seraglio , which he also staged in Frankfurt am Main in 1790 as part of the coronation celebrations for Leopold II . In addition, his troupe gave the Frankfurt premiere of Schiller's drama Die Räuber . Especially for these multiple events he put together an extended ensemble, which gave itself the name Kurtrierische Schauspielertruppe . During these festivities, which lasted several weeks, Böhm lived in the "Backhaus" at Kalbächer Gasse 10, where his friend Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart was also staying at the same time.

But Böhm spent a large part of his time in Aachen , where he had been shaping the performances in the old comedy house since the mid-1780s . Here his troupe offered the Aachen audience, for example, Mozart's Abduction in 1785 , Schiller's Robbers as the first performance in Aachen in 1791 and Mozart's Don Giovanni in 1792 .

During his time as theater director, Böhm preferred singing games that were full of melodies , at the beginning especially works by Carl Ditters von Dittersdorf , whereby his lifelike play in comic roles was praised above all. Further included ballets and operas to his repertoire and especially the works of Mozart and Gluck as well as numerous dramas for example, Hamlet , Othello , King Lear and Macbeth .

Böhm was popular for his consistent theater management, mindful of order and morals, and his artists, some of them remained loyal to him for years. After his death, his resolute and thrifty wife Marianne Jacobs (* 1750), an actress from Strasbourg , took over the management of the theater. Above all, she continued the performances in Aachen, where she staged Mozart's Magic Flute in 1794 , and when the influence of German drama was to be suppressed during the French era, she left republican theater from 1796 before the performances and sometimes also during the performances on instructions from the Paris directorate Songs like Ah! Play Ça ira and the Marseillaise . From 1808 the youngest son Johann (* 1777) took over the theater troupe, but after a few appearances a year later in Dortmund there are no longer any noteworthy mentions of Böhm's traveling theater.

The Böhms' other children were their son Franz (1776–1798), violist and conductor, and their two daughters and actresses Nannette (* 1771) and Jeanette, all of whom initially performed with the ensemble.

literature

• Walter Kunze:  Böhm, Johann Heinrich. In: New German Biography (NDB). Volume 2, Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 1955, ISBN 3-428-00183-4 , p. 383 ( digitized version ).
• HG Fellmann: The B.'sche theater troupe and their time . 1928, = theater store. F, vol. 38 (L).
• EL Stahl: Shakespeare and Dt. Theater . 1947, p. 128 ff.
• Heinz Friedrich Deininger: The German actor society under the direction of Johann Heinrich Böhm, a friend of the Mozart family, in Augsburg in the years 1779 and 1780 . Locksmith, 1943.

swell

1. ↑ Chronicle of Mozart, 1779
2. ^ The Theater Studies Collection Schloss Wahn, p. 60
3. ↑ Messages from the Rhineland-Palatinate and Saarland archives - Die Koblenzer Janitscharen, p. 6. ( Memento of the original from January 8, 2014 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. (PDF file; 1.93 MB)  
4. ↑ Backhaus, Kalbächer Gasse 10, section 9, p. 4 (PDF file; 1.67 MB)
5. ↑ Lutz Felblick: Data in music history, city administration Aachen, 1993

Web links

• Johann Heinrich Böhm Brief information from the University of Cologne
• Johann Heinrich Böhm in the Bavarian Musicians' Lexicon Online (BMLO)