José Ferenczy

José Ferenczy (drawing 1899)

José Ferenczy , actually József Friedemann (born February 2, 1852 in Uschhorod , Transcarpathia ; † July 27, 1908 in Buenos Aires ) was an Austrian opera singer (tenor) and theater director .

Life

José Ferenczy grew up in Uzhhorod, Ukraine ( Hungarian : Ungvár), which was part of the Austrian Empire at the time . He received his training as a tenor primarily from his brother, 17 years his senior, the then famous tenor Franz Ferenczy (1835–1881). He also studied with Francesco Lamperti in Milan and Moritz Laufer in Vienna .

In 1874 José Ferenczy made his debut as Max in Weber's Der Freischütz at the Weimar Court Theater , where his brother had been involved since 1871. This was followed by engagements at theaters in Magdeburg , Würzburg , Graz , Berlin and at the Vienna Ringtheater , where he was only able to save himself by chance during the fire disaster of 1881 . In the mid-1880s he went to the Carl-Schultze-Theater in Hamburg as an operetta singer . There Rudolf Dellinger wrote the operetta Don Cesar, which premiered in 1885, for him . In 1887 Ferenczy made a guest appearance in Saint Petersburg . In 1887/88 he was a member of the Metropolitan Opera in New York , where he participated, among other things, in the American premiere of Wagner's Siegfried . In 1888 José Ferenczy became director of the Carl Schultze Theater . He took even the management of the beginning of the 1890s the Municipal Theater in Carlsbad (Karlovy Vary).

In 1888, José Ferenczy married the operetta singer Lucie Verdier (* 1862), whom he probably met in Saint Petersburg in 1887. In the following years she appeared in the theaters her husband led and died in Berlin in 1903.

In 1898 Ferenczy took over the management of the Berlin Central Theater , which was located in a hall built in 1865 in Alte Jakobstrasse 30-32 in what is now Waldeckpark . On August 14th he opened the house, which could hold around 1000 visitors, as an operetta theater , but remained director of the Carl-Schultze-Theater until 1900 . In 1903 he was also director of the ensemble guest performances at the Theater des Westens and the Lessing Theater . The ensemble of the Central Theater during these years included Emil Albes , Hermann Litt , Heinrich Peer , Helene Voss and the Kapellmeister Curt Goldmann and Leo Fall . The operetta specialist Ferenczy was initially extremely successful, but ran into financial difficulties after the turn of the century. In mid-October 1907 he stopped his payments and resigned as director. On April 20, 1908, the aging theater was finally closed. The New Theater Almanac described in 1909 in retrospect Ferenczy Berlin activities as:

“Ferenczy was at the height of his success at the time. A stage manager in Germany had never before managed to perform a piece 1000 repetitions ... But the huge success ... was his undoing. Its stage, like a number of its actors, had achieved great popularity; but in the deadly monotony of years of repetition, the artistic level of his house sank deeper and deeper. In addition, there were financial difficulties ... His novelties and his new productions proved to be rivets, and so the collapse of his management, which took place in 1907, was long foreseeable and inevitable. "

After the collapse of the Central Theater of the heavily indebted Ferenczy put together a opera company and undertook a South America - touring , he died in Buenos Aires.

literature

• Ottmar G. Flüggen: Ferenczy, José . In: Biographisches Bühnen-Lexikon der Deutschen Theater. 1st year. A. Bruckmann, Munich 1892, p. 81 ( digitized version )
• Ludwig Eisenberg: Ferenczy, Jose . In: Large Biographical Lexicon of the German Stage in the XIX. Century. List, Leipzig 1903, p. 253 f. ( Digitized version )
• [Obituary] José Ferenczy . In: Neuer Theater-Almanach 20 (1909), p. 171
• Ferenczy Jose. In: Austrian Biographical Lexicon 1815–1950 (ÖBL). Volume 1, Verlag der Österreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, Vienna 1957, p. 302.
• Barbara Boisits : Ferenczy (own Friedemann, Fricolmann), brothers. In: Oesterreichisches Musiklexikon . Online edition, Vienna 2002 ff., ISBN 3-7001-3077-5 ; Print edition: Volume 1, Verlag der Österreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, Vienna 2002, ISBN 3-7001-3043-0 .
• Ferenczy, José . In: German Biographical Encyclopedia (DBE). 2nd edition. Vol. 3: Einstein - Görner . Saur, Munich 2006, ISBN 978-3-598-25033-0 , p. 283

Web links

• José Ferenczy at Operissimo  on the basis of the Great Singing Lexicon

Individual evidence

1. ↑ ^{a b} Ottmar G. Flüggen: Ferenczy, José . In: Biographisches Bühnen-Lexikon der Deutschen Theater. 1st year. Munich 1892, p. 81.
2. ↑ ^{a b c d} See under literature Eisenberg
3. ↑ See under Weblinks Operissimo
4. ^ [Obituary] Lucie Ferenczy, b. Verdier. In: Neuer Theater-Almanach 15 (1904), p. 148; Lucie Ferenczy-Verdier: 150th birthday ( Memento of the original from February 21, 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. . In: Online Merker (accessed on February 4, 2014).  
5. ↑ ^{a b} Neuer Theater-Almanach 10 (1899), pp. 132, 264f .; 18 (1907), p. 302.
6. ↑ Neuer Theater-Almanach 19 (1908), p. 257; Horst Windelboth: “Small Temple of the Muses on Alte Jacobstrasse.” About the Berlin Central Theater. In: Der Bär von Berlin 6 (1956), pp. 86-107; Nic Leonhardt: Pictorial dramaturgy. Visual culture and theater in the 19th century (1869–1899). Bielefeld 2007, p. 243 f.
7. ↑ ^{a b} [obituary] José Ferenczy . In: Neuer Theater-Almanach 20 (1909), p. 171.