Marcel Prawy

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Portrait from 1953

Marcell Horace Frydmann Ritter von Prawy (born December 29, 1911 in Vienna ; † February 23, 2003 ibid) was an Austrian dramaturge, opera connoisseur and opera critic with American citizenship.

After the fall of the Austro-Hungarian Empire of the family went to the nobility repeal Act 1919, the ennoblement lost. In October 1938 Prawy emigrated to the United States as Marcell Frydmann , where he called himself Marcell Horace Frydmann Prawy and was registered in 1941 under the name Marcell Frydman-Prawy . After his return to Austria he became known under the name Marcel Prawy from 1955 .

Life

Grave of Marcel Prawy in the Vienna Central Cemetery, Group 33 G, Number 32 (Nov. 2004)
Grave of Marcel Prawy in the Vienna Central Cemetery, Group 33 G, Number 32 (Dec. 2014)

Marcel Prawy came from a Jewish family of court officials of Polish origin who had achieved the Austrian knighthood with his grandfather Marcell Frydmann in 1899 . Marcell Horace was the son of Richard Frydmann Ritter von Prawy , Ministerialrat at the Administrative Court. His mother Marie, née Mankiewicz, took her own life after the First World War , after rumors persisted that Richard von Frydmann was not the father of Prawy's sister Edith. As a result, the young Prawy was brought to Czechoslovakia to live with his aunt Hedwig. When his father remarried, Prawy came back to Vienna. After graduating from the Wasagasse grammar school in Vienna- Alsergrund , he studied law and obtained a doctorate in law. jur.

Prawy's passion was opera from an early age . He attended musicological lectures with Egon Wellesz and was a regular guest on the legendary ground floor of the Vienna State Opera for many years . Prawy met the tenor Jan Kiepura and became his private secretary. In October 1938 Prawy was able to emigrate with Kiepura and his family to the USA via Rome and thus escaped persecution by the National Socialist regime. He also brought his father to the United States, while his sister Edith, who died in Denver in 2007 , voluntarily stayed in Vienna, where she lived temporarily in the underground. In exile, on the advice of Kiepura ("Have you kept ugly names and thrown away beautiful ones? Do the reverse!"), He added the name Prawy ( Polish for "the righteous"), and now called himself Marcell Horace Frydmann Prawy.

In 1944 he was stationed in Great Britain, where he was deployed together with Georg Kreisler in the troop maintenance of D-Day soldiers. After the Second World War , Prawy returned to Vienna in 1946 as a cultural officer. In 1950 he resigned from the US armed forces and became a record producer and organizer of music evenings in the Kosmos cinema. From 1955 he was dramaturge at the Vienna Volksoper and from 1956, starting with Kiss Me, Kate , brought musicals from the USA to the European continent for the first time . Initially, these productions met with great resistance in Vienna, as the introduction of the US musical was feared to end domestic operettas . Prawy was nevertheless successful and is therefore considered to be the one who made the musical in German acceptable. He subsequently brought further translations to the Volksoper, including works by his friend Leonard Bernstein with Wonderful Town (1956) and West Side Story (1968) .

In 1972 Prawy was to become the opera director of the Vienna State Opera , but the then Minister Leopold Gratz preferred Rudolf Gamsjäger . He was "only" chief dramaturge of the opera house. From 1976 to 1982 he was a full professor for opera dramaturgy at the University of Music and Performing Arts Vienna and lecturer for theater studies at the University of Vienna as well as visiting professor at numerous American and Japanese universities. He became known through television and radio broadcasts, in which he introduced his audience to the world of musical theater with knowledge of the work and humor. Prawy was friends with many prominent singers and musicians such as Plácido Domingo , Leonard Bernstein and Robert Stolz . He was particularly fond of the works of Richard Wagner . In his book "Now be thanked ..." My Richard Wagner book found his admiration for Wagner in an extraordinarily emotional way.

For the last ten years he lived in the immediate vicinity of the State Opera in the Hotel Sacher . The opera leader bequeathed his extensive collection of musical documents, manuscripts and original sheet music from Richard Strauss to Leonard Bernstein to his partner Senta Wengraf , who in turn left them to the City of Vienna. This collection of documents was kept in the legendary 2,000 plastic bags - preferably the bright yellow ones from Billa , Spar and LÖWA - which were in his apartment and later in his hotel room. Hardly anyone managed to portray the opera as impressively as he did. As the nation's opera leader , Prawy became an institution of Viennese opera.

Marcel Prawy's remains are buried at the Vienna Central Cemetery (Group 33 G, Number 32) in an honorary grave of the City of Vienna . In April 2008, the Marcel-Prawy-Promenade in Vienna- Donaustadt (22nd district) was named after him.

Awards

Anecdotal

The collaboration with the Polish tenor Jan Kiepura supposedly came about like this: Kiepura had legal problems with various contracts. When he heard from the young, operatic lawyer Prawy, he spoke to him in the Vienna State Opera: “Do you speak French?”. “Yes.” “Do you speak Italian?” “Yes.” “Do you speak Polish?” “No, but I can learn it in two weeks.” “Learn. Do you want to be my secretary? "

Prawy spoke six languages: German, English, French, Italian, Spanish and Polish.

Fonts

  • The Vienna Opera. History and stories . Molden, Vienna 1969; 3rd, supplementary u. revised Edition. ibid. 1978, ISBN 3-217-00726-3 .
  • Johann Strauss. World history in waltz time . Molden, Vienna 1975; Goldmann, Munich 1980, ISBN 3-442-26710-2 .
  • "Now thank you ..." My Richard Wagner book . Goldmann, Munich 1983, ISBN 3-442-10191-3 .
  • Johann Strauss . Ueberreuter, Vienna 1991, ISBN 3-8000-3393-3 .
  • Marcel Prawy tells from his life . Kremayr & Scheriau, Vienna 1996; 6., revised. u. exp. Edition. ibid. 2002, ISBN 3-218-00690-2 .

Remarks

  1. ↑ Hedwig (1889–1960) was the daughter of Marcell Frydmann Ritter von Prawy (1847–1906); according to the first marriage (1911) her name was Hedwig Edle von Gutmann (after Wilhelm Hermann Ritter von Gutmann, 1889–1966, great-nephew of Wilhelm von Gutmann , 1826–1895), according to the second (1924) Hedwig (Edle von) Taussig (after Karl Ritter von Taussig, 1878–?), according to third (after 1927) Hedwig (Edle von) Wurzian (after Hans Ritter von Wurzian, 1888–1959). - Rubey: Marcel Prawy , p. 87 and Parte :  (…) Bertha Frydmann Edlen von Prawy (…) Hedwig Taussig (…). In:  Neue Freie Presse , Morgenblatt, No. 22439/1927, March 5, 1927, p. 22, above. (Online at ANNO ). Template: ANNO / Maintenance / nfp.
    She was buried in her parents' grave in the Old Israelite Department (3rd Gate) in the Vienna Central Cemetery.

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ A life for the opera (archive) . In: Deutschlandfunk Kultur . December 29, 2011, accessed January 26, 2019.
  2. ↑ a b c Christoph Wagner-Trenkwitz: The professor from the "Hotel Sackerl". In: Die Zeit , No. 50, December 7, 2006. Retrieved December 1, 2011.
  3. ↑ a b See passport photo with signature Marcell Horace Frydmann Prawy, undated ( jpg  ( page no longer available , search in web archives )  Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this note. ): Marcell Horace Frydmann Prawy. News from the estate. On the occasion of the 100th birthday: Opening of the exhibition in the foyer of the Vienna Library.  ( Page no longer available , search in web archives )  Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. In: Event announcement of the Vienna Library in the City Hall , December 1, 2011. Accessed December 1, 2011.@1@ 2Template: Toter Link / www.wienbibliothek.at  @1@ 2Template: Toter Link / www.wienbibliothek.at  
  4. ↑ See “Identification service treatment of the emigrant Marcell Frydmann-Prawy. Bureau of Identification, Police Department, Beverly Hills, California, February 20th, 1941 (Vienna City Hall Library, manuscript collection, Marcel Prawy estate, ZPH 1298) “( jpg  ( page no longer available , search in web archives )  Info: The link was automatically defective Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this note. ): Object of the month December 2011. On the 100th birthday of Marcel Prawy on December 29, 2011.  ( Page no longer available , search in web archives )  Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. In: Vienna Library in City Hall , December 1, 2011. Accessed December 1, 2011.@1@ 2Template: Toter Link / www.wienbibliothek.at  @1@ 2Template: Toter Link / www.wienbibliothek.at  
  5. ↑ Cf. FRYDMANN, Ritter von Prawy, Richard. ( Memento of the original from June 7, 2011 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. Graduate of the Franz-Joseph-Gymnasium ( Memento of the original from December 7th, 2011 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. (today GRG1 Stubenbastei 1010 Vienna ), Matura year 1901. Retrieved on December 1, 2011. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.stubenbastei.at @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.stubenbastei.at
  6. ↑ Prawy Marcel DDr. hc. Prof. In: Club Carriere - Encyclopedia of Success 2000. Algoprint, Vaduz 2000, ISBN 3-9521669-3-6 , p. 839. ( Excerpt from Google Book Search .)
  7. ↑ See passport of Dr. Marcell Frydmann, issued on October 18, 1938 by the passport office of the "German Embassy in Rome" ( jpg ): News from the Prawy estate. In: Vienna. ORF .at, December 1, 2011. Accessed December 1, 2011.
  8. ^ Georg Kreisler author, composer and chansonnier in conversation with Christoph Lindenmeyer . (PDF) In: Bayerischer Rundfunk . June 19, 2008, accessed on January 26, 2019 (PDF; broadcast on February 28, 2003).
  9. ↑ The Volksoper commemorates Marcel Prawy's 95th birthday.  ( Page no longer available , search in web archives )  Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. In: Website of the Volkstheater, December 18, 2006. Accessed December 1, 2011.@1@ 2Template: Toter Link / www.volksoper.at  
  10. ↑ Marcel Prawy died in Vienna. Obituary in: OTS press release of the Vienna State Opera, February 24, 2003. Retrieved on December 1, 2011.
  11. ↑ Brief message: Professor Marcel Prawy . In: Arbeiter-Zeitung . Vienna July 16, 1976, p. 7 ( berufer-zeitung.at - the open online archive - digitized).
  12. ^ Kurier Zeitgeschichte, Sunday, July 4, 2010, page 22
  13. ↑ Mailath unveiled Marcel-Prawy-Promenade in Vienna Donaustadt. In: Archive report of the City Hall correspondence of the City of Vienna, April 1, 2008. Retrieved on December 1, 2011.
  14. ↑ List of all decorations awarded by the Federal President for services to the Republic of Austria from 1952 (PDF; 6.9 MB).
personal data
SURNAME Prawy, Marcel
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Prawy, Marcell Horace Frydmann Ritter von (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Austrian dramaturge, opera connoisseur and opera critic
DATE OF BIRTH December 29, 1911
PLACE OF BIRTH Vienna
DATE OF DEATH February 23, 2003
Place of death Vienna