Katharina Schratt

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Katharina Schratt

Katharina Schratt (born September 11, 1853 in Baden near Vienna , Austrian Empire ; † April 17, 1940 in Vienna , German Empire ) was an Austrian actress who, because of her long-term private relationship with Emperor Franz Joseph I, is still the subject of literature and Is gossip.

Life

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Katharina Schratt was the daughter of the paper and office supplies dealer Anton Schratt (1804–1883). She had two brothers. At the age of six she discovered her love for the theater. The parents tried everything to keep their daughter away from acting. So they sent the daughter to a boarding school in Cologne . She again worked tenaciously on the realization of her project. At the age of 15 she performed for the first time in Leobersdorf . The piece happened to be called Obstinacy . After that she was allowed to attend the Kierschnersche drama school in Vienna.

Katharina Schratt in Little Mama , 1899 (Hofatelier Adèle )

The seventeen year old made her debut as a guest at the Vienna Theater Academy in her hometown of Baden. Her first permanent engagement led her to the court theater in Berlin in 1872 , where she was able to record notable successes after a short time. Katharina Schratt only stayed a few months in Berlin, however, before accepting the call to the Vienna City Theater . After an engagement at the German Court Theater in Saint Petersburg , a self-chosen break followed.

In spring 1879 she married the Hungarian consular officer Miklos Baron Kiss de Ittebe (also: Nikolaus Baron Kiss von Ittebe; 1852-1909). From her husband, who was considered a bon vivant, she separated again in 1880, but without divorce. Their son Anton was born in the same year (1880–1970).

After a guest performance in New York , she returned to a theater in Vienna in 1883, to the Hofburgtheater . Again, "Die Schratt" celebrated one success after another and became one of the most popular actresses of her time in Austria. In 1887 she was appointed court actress. After differences of opinion with the new Burgtheater director Paul Schlenther , Katharina Schratt terminated her contract in October 1900 and retired at the age of 47.

Katharina Schratt caused the biggest theater scandal in the monarchy when she - as a friend of the emperor - played an empress in Franz von Schönthan's comedy Maria Theresia in 1903 at the German People's Theater in Vienna. In his magazine Die Fackel, the journalist Karl Kraus denounced the fact that Schratt was seen as the Empress as the “peak of tastelessness”. Kraus spoke of "shabbiness of disposition, dizziness and the most disgusting indecency in order to help fill the empty coffers of a business theater in front of an audience horny for gossip". While the emperor and the actress had always made sure not to make their relationship public, the actress has now left the limits of good taste. Even the emperor couldn't believe it: “I read in the newspaper that you will play Maria Theresa. Is that true? ”After the scandal, Katharina Schratt never took a stage again.

Relationships

Katharina Schratt in evening dress, painting by Heinrich von Angeli

As a prominent member of the Hofburgtheater, the actress was invited to all major festivals in Vienna. This was also the case with the “Industrialists' Ball” in 1885, where she had a long conversation with Emperor Franz Joseph I for the first time - apart from an audience in 1883 . After a theater performance in the Moravian castle Kremsier for the Russian Tsar Alexander III. the artists present were asked to have dinner with the monarchs. It was there that Katharina Schratt first met Empress Elisabeth , who from now on promoted contact between the actress and the Emperor. The friendship between Katharina Schratt and Emperor Franz Joseph lasted with an interruption in 1900/01 (after differences of opinion with the Emperor) until his death in November 1916, although it had cooled a little after the death of Empress Elisabeth in 1898.

The actress, who lived a lavish lifestyle and was also a passionate player, repeatedly received financial donations from the Kaiser in order to pay off her enormous debts. In addition, the emperor showered her with valuable jewelry and gave her a villa in Gloriettegasse in Vienna, near Schönbrunn Palace . He also made the Villa Felicitas on the road to Pfandl available to her in Bad Ischl , which was soon generally known as the “Schratt Villa”. However, the emperor resisted all attempts by Katharina Schratt to gain influence over the management of the court theater through his person. Her husband died in 1909 and left her the Palais Königswarter , which she had lived in since 1890 and which he acquired in 1907, on Kärntner Ring 4, diagonally across from the Vienna State Opera .

Georg Markus , who published a Schratt biography in 1982, came back to her in his book It was very different, published in 2013, and used historical letters to prove that Katharina Schratt was close friends with other men besides Franz Joseph: with Count Hans Wilczek , who Dedicated her love letters to her fellow actor Viktor Kutschera , with whom she appeared as Maria Theresia and Franz Stephan von Lothringen in what was then the German Volkstheater in Vienna , and to Ferdinand von Sachsen-Coburg-Koháry , who later became King of Bulgaria.

Retirement

Ittebe and Schratt's Kiss grave in the Hietzingen cemetery

After the death of Emperor Franz Joseph, the former actress lived almost completely withdrawn in her 500 m² apartment on the third floor of her palace. The committed animal lover (she herself owned a monkey, three parrots and seven dogs) only went public every now and then, for example for readings for charitable organizations. Otherwise, one of her main occupations was laying puzzles .

In her later years, Katharina Schratt became a deeply religious woman who attended church every day and made pilgrimages to the deceased emperor's grave several times a week . She maintained the strictest discretion about her relationship with the Kaiser. On April 17, 1940, Katharina Schratt died of old age at the age of 86. She was buried in the Hietzing cemetery (group 19, number 108) in Vienna.

family

The grandfather Chrysostomus Schratt (1773-1851) came from Constance , studied medicine in Vienna and came to Baden as a surgeon , where he first treated French people in a hospital and later those returning from Russia. His wife was Rosalia geb. Binz (1781–1856), daughter of the Viennese bookseller and antiquarian Johann Georg Binz, who came from Gündlingen im Breisgau. Schratt excelled in treating the inmates of the charity house free of charge . He also fought animal diseases through his veterinary skills.

The older brother was Heinrich Schratt (1851–1940). He worked in agriculture, spent a few years in the United States, from where he returned in 1876 when his father became seriously ill. In the Schratthaus in Baden he ran a Pinzgauer dairy and a small farm with cattle. In 1890 he left Baden with his wife and went to Carinthia on the Längsee . He died at the age of 90 on September 5, 1940 in the state hospital in Sankt Veit an der Glan and was buried in the local cemetery of Sankt Georgen am Längsee .

The youngest of the three siblings was Rudolf Schratt (1860–1952). Like his sister, he was just as interested in the theater, where he tried his hand at a young age, but eventually studied mechanical engineering in Mittweida in Saxony and then worked again in Austria. With increasing age he devoted himself again to public life in Baden and thus also to the theater. He created the designs and ideas for the Baden Summer Arena with its sliding glass roof.

literature

Filmography

Web links

Commons : Katharina Schratt  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Holdings in the catalogs of the Austrian National Library:

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c Henriette Povse: The Cookbook family Schratt: Culinary stories from Baden , 2012, p 25, ISBN 978-3-86680-969-7 , discoverable online.
  2. ↑ a b c Entry about Katharina Schratt on Burgen-Austria
  3. ↑ Ralph-Günther Patocka:  Schratt, Katharina. In: New German Biography (NDB). Volume 23, Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 2007, ISBN 978-3-428-11204-3 , p. 519 f. ( Digitized version ).
  4. ^ The great theater scandals kurier.at, March 16, 2014.
  5. ↑ Villa Schratt ( Memento of the original from September 1, 2013 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. . @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.eurothermen.at
  6. ↑ a b Countess Gina Apponyi's suicide. In:  Wiener Sonntags-Zeitung / Wiener Sonn- und Mondags-Zeitung , April 20, 1931, p. 3 (online at ANNO ). Template: ANNO / Maintenance / wsz("Frau Schratt made her own apartment available to Countess Apponyi. Countess Apponyi brought her here, who lived in two modest rooms in Frau Schratt's elegant palace, Kärntner Ring 4.")
  7. ↑ Georg Markus: Frau Schratt goes foreign , part 1 of the series It was very different in the daily newspaper Kurier , Vienna, October 13, 2013, p. 20, excerpt from the book It was very different , Amalthea-Verlag, Vienna 2013.
  8. ^ H. Feigl:  Schratt Johann Chrysostomus. In: Austrian Biographical Lexicon 1815–1950 (ÖBL). Volume 11, Verlag der Österreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, Vienna 1999, ISBN 3-7001-2803-7 , p. 179.
  9. ↑ Central and Lower Carinthia - St. Georgen a. L. - A brother of the Hofburg actress Schratt died. In:  Alpenländische Rundschau. Non-political weekly for the entire Alpine countries / Alpenländische Rundschau , September 14, 1940, p. 7 (online at ANNO ).Template: ANNO / Maintenance / alp
personal data
SURNAME Schratt, Katharina
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Austrian actress
DATE OF BIRTH September 11, 1853
PLACE OF BIRTH Baden near Vienna , Austrian Empire
DATE OF DEATH April 17, 1940
Place of death Vienna , German Empire