Kurt Leo Sourisseaux

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Kurt Leo Sourisseaux (born May 29, 1927 in Würzburg ; † April 23, 2015 ) was a German opera singer (tenor), actor and director , primarily in the field of operetta . From 1968 to 1992 he was senior operetta director at the Städtische Bühnen Nürnberg .

Life

As a schoolboy, Kurt Leo Sourisseaux was a regular extra on the stage of the Würzburg theater in the middle of World War II . It was on this occasion that the actor Erwin Schweizer discovered his talent. From then on, he gave Sourisseaux acting and dance lessons together with his wife Trude Rudorf. At the same time, the young artist learned the violin at the Bavarian State Conservatory for Music (now the University of Music ) in Würzburg. Although he joined the Wehrmacht at the age of 17 in 1943 , he did not have to take part in acts of war.

With the post-war restart of the Würzburg theater, Sourisseaux received an engagement as an “actor with choir engagement , stage manager, assistant director, prompter and tour guide”. His comic talent was soon recognized, and so he got a buffo role for the first time in Franz Lehár's operetta The Land of Smiles . He developed into a comedian par excellence and has played practically all buffo parts of the classical operetta repertoire during his career.

After a station in Bamberg (1948 to 1950) Sourisseaux finally came to Nuremberg. At the theater there he developed into the defining figure of the operetta ensemble from the 1950/51 season. He became an absolute darling of the public. In the first season he was on stage in six (out of a total of nine) operetta premieres. This abundance of production was possible and necessary because a theater community existed between Nuremberg and Fürth until 1970 and two stages had to be played. With the premiere of Paul Burkhard's fireworks , the great Nuremberg operetta era began in the 1951/1952 season and was considered to be a style-defining era for several decades. Numerous world premieres by contemporary operetta composers determined the repertoire alongside the classical repertoire. At that time, Sourisseaux was known as the “jack-of-all-trades in theater”. This is also evidenced by his successes as Frosch in der Fledermaus (also at the Deutsche Oper am Rhein in Düsseldorf), in the speaking role as steward in Richard Strauss ' Ariadne auf Naxos and as theater director in the prelude to Johann Wolfgang Goethe's Faust .

Kurt Sourisseaux's outstanding commitment led in 1968 to his appointment as Nuremberg Senior Operetta Director, a position that he held for two years with his predecessor Willi Auerbach , then under sole responsibility until the 1991/1992 season. His more than one hundred productions in Nuremberg and elsewhere "were characterized by their speed and great blaze of color." The numerous guest performances and engagements as a singer and director at home and abroad attested to his success.

In 2006 Kurt Leo Sourisseaux officially left the Nuremberg Theater, but until recently he occasionally appeared on a smaller scale. In 2012 his wife, the Franco-Russian prima ballerina Olga Barneva, with whom he was married for 60 years, died.

Awards

Games (selection)

literature

  • Michael Kerstan: Souri's Ark. Kurt Leo Sourisseaux and the Nuremberg operetta from 1950 . Henschel Verlag, Frankfurt a. M. 2007

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Actor Kurt Leo Sourisseaux is dead , accessed April 25, 2015
  2. ↑ Michael Kerstan: Souris Arche. Kurt Leo Sourisseaux and the Nuremberg operetta from 1950. Henschel Verlag, Frankfurt a. M. 2007, p. 22
  3. ^ Operetta legend Kurt Leo Sourisseaux is 85, Nürnberger Zeitung, May 28, 2012
  4. ^ Operetta legend Kurt Leo Sourisseaux is 85, Nürnberger Zeitung, May 28, 2012
personal data
SURNAME Sourisseaux, Kurt Leo
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German opera singer (tenor), actor and director
DATE OF BIRTH May 29, 1927
PLACE OF BIRTH Wurzburg
DATE OF DEATH April 23, 2015