Lotte Witt

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Lotte Witt (1897)

Lotte Witt (born April 23, 1870 in Berlin , † December 28, 1938 in Vienna ) was a German theater actress .

Life

Mainz, Elberfeld, Saint Petersburg

Lotte Witt grew up as a young child in the English-speaking world, as her parents, the actors Fanny and Julius Witt , emigrated to America in 1871 and joined German-speaking theaters there. After the early death of her father (1879), she returned to Europe with her mother. Lotte Witt gained her first stage experience at the Stadttheater in Mainz , where she went to school. As a 19-year-old she was hired as a young lover to Elberfeld . Shortly afterwards she got to Saint Petersburg, which was a center of German-speaking theater culture at the time. As a still very young actress, “almost still a child”, Lotte Witt met famous colleagues like Josef Kainz , Friedrich Mitterwurzer , Arthur Vollmer , Emanuel Reicher and Jenny Groß . The Italian Eleonora Duse appeared in guest performances. Lotte Witt passed a test on her first day in Saint Petersburg. The leading actress in the Wildenbruch drama Die Haubenlerche had to cancel due to illness. Since the Petersburg director Philipp Bock did not have a replacement piece ready, Lotte Witt offered to take on the role in the crested lark - she had already played the piece in Elberfeld. Despite major concerns, Bock agreed. The Austrian theater critic Hermann Bahr , who was also in Saint Petersburg at the time, remembered the evening years later:

"[...] she begins to chat confidently with the greatest calm, [...] just like old acquaintances, and her bright voice sways and now her laughter suddenly flies through the house like a lark. [...] And we look at each other and now we all know that the little person is a great actress and we have such joy! Since then I have seen a lot in the theater, but I have never felt the whole secret of the actor more vividly: this is to do good to people through their mere existence, as do good to flowers, merely by their being in the world ; You can never thank them enough for that. "

As a result of the great success, the Petersburg audience constantly wanted to see new productions with Lotte Witt. In 1891, however, she gave in to the advertising of artistic director Bernhard Pollini and went to Hamburg .

Hamburg and Vienna

Lotte Witt in a performance of Ludwig Fulda's comedy The Twin Sister (Vienna, 1905)

In the Hanseatic city, Lotte Witt became a crowd favorite of the Thalia Theater in just a few months . In the words of Hermann Bahr: “She just looked at the people and already had them.” At that time, she mainly played in the naive, lively and sentimental subject . Her roles also included Franziska in Lessing's Minna von Barnhelm and Rahel in Grillparzer's Die Jüdin von Toledo .

On April 1, 1895 guested Lotte Witt as Fanchon in The Grille from Charlotte Birch-Pfeiffer first time at the Vienna Burgtheater and already pointed it at a commitment from. She had other guest roles in plays by Iffland and Wilbrandt and as Ilka in War and Peace . These performances were perceived as very successful, so that artistic director Max Burckhard committed them to his ensemble from June 3, 1898. In Hamburg, however, the grief over the loss of the actress was so great that - according to a formulation by Siegfried Loewy - "the ships anchored in the harbor [...] almost hoisted half-over".

One of her first permanent roles in Vienna was that of the maid Hanne Schäl in Gerhart Hauptmann's milieu drama Fuhrmann Henschel . According to the judgment of a critic, Lotte Witt brought out the “crude sensuality, the rustic, clever and calculating” “with almost uncanny realism”. As early as 1900, after just two years of engagement, she was appointed court actress, which was considered an “extremely rare case”. In the same year, the leading naturalistic magazine Die Gesellschaft counted her, alongside Josef Kainz, among the “first-rate foreign actors” who “made their home on the castle stage”. While Paul Schlenther (1898–1910) was director of the Burgtheater , Lotte Witt developed into a salon lady . Gradually she was seen in the greatest roles, such as - at the side of Kainz - as Cressida in Shakespeare's Troilus and Cressida , in the title role in Henrik Ibsen's play Hedda Gabler and as Anna Karenina in the stage version of the novel by Leo Tolstoy . Years later, Hermann Bahr saw her again on the Viennese stage and recognized the development that had taken place:

“At that time she was [...] actually content to let the charm of her pure, intimate and, I have to say it again, so flower-like nature prevail. […] But now she had learned to organize herself into the play. She was tamed; now she held on, word and demeanor had the most beautiful proportions, she no longer forgot to obey the whole thing. The happiest nature had become the noblest art. "

As was not unusual for a professional actress, Lotte Witt had a well-trained singing voice, which was occasionally used in performances. What was rather unusual at this early stage, however, was that a German actress dared to write a current ragtime song and published it on record in 1902 . Lotte Witt recorded the song by the composer duo Joseph E. Howard and Ida Emerson as Hallo My Baby (original title: Hello! Ma Baby ) in passable English, whereby her childhood years in America may have benefited her.

On April 7, 1926 Lotte Witt became an honorary member of the Burgtheater. In total, she remained connected to the Vienna stage for more than thirty years. With her best roles she also appeared in guest performances , among others in Salzburg , Klagenfurt , Pilsen and Czernowitz . Lotte Witt ended her career due to illness in 1930. The Neue Wiener Tagblatt described her in an obituary as "one of the most charming [sic] and most successful actresses in German theater".

family

Lotte Witt was married to Major General Livius Borotha von Trstenica (1869–1961), who came from a Croatian aristocratic family. The wedding in 1906 caused quite a stir in the domestic and foreign press as officers were not allowed to marry actresses or singers at the time. As an exception, the Austrian emperor personally granted permission to marry. The couple had two children: the lawyer and brief President of the Austrian Administrative Court, Sergius Borotha (1907–1990), and the actress Susi Witt .

Lotte Witt's siblings were the actor and theater director Carl Witt (1862-1930), the actress Hermine Straßmann-Witt and the actress Käthe Frank-Witt (1872-1916).

literature

  • Hermann Bahr, Lotte Witt. In: HB, Wiener Theater (1892–1898) . Berlin 1899, pp. 190-195.
  • Siegfried Loewy, The Castle Actress from America . In: Neues Wiener Journal , July 9, 1922, p. 10.
  • Franz Planer (Ed.), The Yearbook of the Vienna Society. Biographical contributions to contemporary history in Vienna. Vienna 1929.
  • Deutsches Bühnen-Jahrbuch , 51, 1940, p. 103.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b Neues Wiener Tagblatt, January 1, 1939.
  2. ↑ Aleksej I. Žerebin, "Everything is devilishly elegant." On the cultural relations between Vienna and Petersburg around 1900. In: Das Wort. Germanistic Yearbook Russia , 2008, pp. 167–174.
  3. ↑ Hermann Bahr, Lotte Witt. In: HB, Wiener Theater (1892–1898) . Berlin 1899, p. 190.
  4. ↑ Hermann Bahr, Lotte Witt. In: HB, Wiener Theater (1892–1898) . Berlin 1899, p. 191 f.
  5. ↑ a b c Rita Bake / Brita Reimers, This is how they lived! Walking on the paths of women in Hamburg's old and new town. Hamburg 2003, p. 113.
  6. ↑ a b Hermann Bahr, Lotte Witt. In: HB, Wiener Theater (1892–1898) . Berlin 1899, p. 192.
  7. ↑ Small theater chats. :  Wiener Hausfrauen-Zeitung. Organ of the Wiener Hausfrauen-Verein / Wiener Hausfrauen-Zeitung. Organ for domestic interests , year 1895, p. 122 (online at ANNO ).Template: ANNO / Maintenance / whz
  8. ↑ Small theater chats. :  Wiener Hausfrauen-Zeitung. Organ of the Wiener Hausfrauen-Verein / Wiener Hausfrauen-Zeitung. Organ for domestic interests , year 1895, p. 194 (online at ANNO ).Template: ANNO / Maintenance / whz
  9. ↑ Small theater chats. :  Wiener Hausfrauen-Zeitung. Organ of the Wiener Hausfrauen-Verein / Wiener Hausfrauen-Zeitung. Organ for domestic interests , year 1895, p. 136 (online at ANNO ).Template: ANNO / Maintenance / whz
  10. ↑ Theater, Art and Literature. In:  Deutsches Volksblatt / Deutsches Volksblatt. Radical medium-sized organ / telegraph. Radical Mittelstandsorgan / Deutsches Volksblatt. Daily newspaper for Christian German politics , June 4, 1898, p. 12 (online at ANNO ).Template: ANNO / Maintenance / dvb
  11. ↑ Siegfried Loewy, The Castle Actress from America . In: Neues Wiener Journal , July 9, 1922, p. 10.
  12. ↑ The balance. Eine Wiener Wochenschrift , Volume 2, 1899, p. 82.
  13. ^ Salzburger Volksblatt , January 3, 1939.
  14. ^ Die Gesellschaft , Volume 16, Part 4, 1900, p. 49.
  15. ^ Ragtime in the KuK Monarchy , German Shellac Record and Gramophone Forum (accessed on September 22, 2020).
  16. ↑ Le Monde Artiste , July 22, 1906.
  17. ^ Indiana Tribune [Indianapolis], August 9, 1906.
personal data
SURNAME Witt, Lotte
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German theater actress
DATE OF BIRTH April 23, 1870
PLACE OF BIRTH Berlin
DATE OF DEATH December 28, 1938
Place of death Vienna