Josef Armin

Josef Armin (born August 4, 1858 as Josef Rottenstein in Pest , Austrian Empire , † February 25, 1925 in Vienna ) was a Hungarian-Austrian comedian , couplet singer , stage author and director and writer . He was one of the "in-house authors" of the Budapest Orpheum in Vienna.

Live and act

Years of traveling and a career as a singer and theater maker

Josef Armin was born in Pest in 1858 as the son of a tailor. He made his first appearance at the age of 12 at the Deutsches Theater in Budapest , where he was trained by the director Seiler.

As a teenager he went to Vienna, where he worked in a cloth shop. In addition, he continued his training at the Kürschner Theater Academy on the Tuchlauben. Soon he joined a traveling folk singing company with whom he traveled around Galicia. In Lemberg he got to know the singing duo and siblings Käthe and Anna Rieder, who performed as "golden bulls". He teamed up with the two of them and married Käthe. The three performed on German-speaking stages across Austria-Hungary. When Anna also got married and got a permanent place of residence, Käthe and Josef went to Vienna, where they performed in the Albert Hirsch singspielhalle for a few years . Then they were engaged at Herzmanns Orpheum in Budapest, where after a while Armin wanted to set up his own singing company in the Dobler Bazaar. However, the attempt soon failed for financial reasons and the couple returned to Vienna. There they performed for many years in the Orpheum in Wasagasse.

Armin made a name for himself there not only as a couplet singer, but also as a comedian, actor and director. As a comedian he also performed at the horticultural variety show and “ Venice in Vienna ”.

Second career as a songwriter and stage writer

He finally ended his active career around 1900 to devote himself only to writing song and stage texts. His second career was quickly successful. He wrote numerous antics, scenes and couplets for entertainers of all kinds, who spread them throughout the German-speaking area. Heinrich Eisenbach and Armin Berg were among the best-known recipients of his texts . Eisenbach made his acting debut at the Orpheum in Budapest in Armin's posse Chaim Katz from Karmeliter Platz . He also wrote operettas libretti such as The Millionaire Bride (music: Adolf Kmoch ) and Johann Strauss im Olymp . Occasionally, such as in Schwank The Quick-Change Artist (1905), Armin himself played.

In 1902 he opened a sales office for stage plays and lyrics, the Varieté Repertoire Büro . In addition to his own works, he also sold works by other authors and comedians, such as Louis Taufstein and Eugen Mátray .

Armin also founded his own variety school: Josef Armin's Institute for Variety and Cabaret Art . The Apollo Theater was the seat of this training center . According to the company, the " only professionally run teaching institute for singing, dance and show acts, comedy, recitations and lectures " offered courses by him, the " teacher of the most famous artists ", Herma Armin, the " master lecturer for soubrettes, diseuses and dance singers " and Ida Armin, the " concert pianist and singing master ".

As one of the in-house authors of the Budapest Orpheum in Vienna, he wrote numerous antics and life pictures . Often these related to current operas and operettas, which were then rewritten in such a way that they appeared like a story from a Jewish quarter of Vienna. This happened, for example, with Freund Fritzl , a play that premiered in the Orpheum in Budapest in 1897 and which Armin and Hermann Rosenzweig rewrote as a one-act play with Jewish characters based on Pietro Mascagni's famous opera L'amico Fritz . The pastiche was successfully performed over two years. In many other cases, the satirized operas and operettas had nothing in common with the title and location, but in all other respects reflected the local color of Leopoldstadt , the center of Jewish life in Vienna, for the audience to enjoy.

Works

A selection of texts written by Josef Armin:

Plays and antics

• Stories from Hernals , Life Picture, 1892
• Turf'gschichten (Music: MO Schlesinger), Comedy, 1892
• Billing in the countryside , Posse, 1892
• The ogre , life picture, 1892
• Chaim Katz from Karmeliter Platz , 1894
• The little Lordl , 1896
• He wanted to make a joke , 1896
• The Klabrias game in Aschanti village , 1896
• The village rump or a golden boy , 1896
• Under the spell of cards - The Klabrias player , 1901
• From a small garrison , Schwank, 1903
• The Grabber Bounty , Comedy, 1905
• The quick-change artist , Schwank, 1905
• The old Heidelberg , comedy, 1905
• Professor Zeysig , Posse, 1905
• Reasons for divorce
• That pretty lady
• Gutmann's successes
• A spicy invention
• The house must stay clean (with Arthur Franzetti ), Burlesque, 1913
• The platonic family friend (with Arthur Franzetti), Schwank, 1913
• The violet pleureuse (with Arthur Franzetti), Schwank, 1913
• When the dead awaken (with Arthur Franzetti), burlesque, 1913
• Frau Morgenstock's hat , comical scene, 1895
• The trip to Oradea , singing sticks, 1895

Operettas (libretti)

• The millionaire bride (music: Adolf Kmoch )
• Johann Strauss in Olymp

Couplets

• Sami, just don't get upset, 1912

Singing games

• The daughters of Captain Brand , 1894
• Freund Fritzl (with Hermann Rosenzweig ; based on the opera L'amico Fritz by Pietro Mascagni ), 1897
• Chaim Frosch im Zauberlande (based on Ferdinand Raimund ), fantastic magic song game, 1903
• A happy event for Ephraim Apfelkern , 1903

literature

• Georg Wacks: The Budapest Orpheum Society - A Varieté in Vienna 1889-1919. Verlag Holzhausen, Vienna 2002, ISBN 3-85493-054-2 , u. a. P. 65f

Individual evidence

1. ^ Advertisement on the back of a song book for Armin Berg, o. O., o. J. In: Georg Wacks: The Budapest Orpheum Society - A Varieté in Vienna 1889–1919. Verlag Holzhausen, Vienna 2002, p. 65
2. ↑ Program for 'I think I am not quite normal' (PDF; 799 kB) , Armin Berg Gesellschaft, p. 6 (accessed on August 7, 2008)
3. ↑ Vienna Library, Nachlass Hans Moser, p. 223 ( Memento of the original of January 8, 2007 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.