Marcellus Schiffer

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Marcellus Schiffer (actually Otto Schiffer ; born June 20, 1892 in Berlin , † August 24, 1932 there ) was a German cabaret writer , graphic artist , painter , chanson writer and librettist .

Life

Marcellus Schiffer was born on June 20, 1892 as the son of a Jewish timber merchant in Berlin. After graduating from high school, he trained as a painter, illustrator and graphic artist with Emil Orlik . He soon realized, however, that his real talent lay in another area: writing satirical texts.

In the early 1920s, Schiffer met the French Margo Lion in his hometown , who had come to Berlin to attend a Russian ballet school. Because Schiffer thought his girlfriend was pathologically jealous, he believed that he could cure her by persuading her to perform in cabarets. He developed a new form of literary revue in Berlin and worked from 1922 to 1925 in the cabarets Wilde Bühne, Rampe, Tütü, megalomania and catacomb. In November 1923 she made her debut with the chanson written by Schiffer Die Linie der Mode . They got married in 1928.

His acquaintance with the Russian-British composer Mischa Spoliansky , who was also living in Berlin at the time, was also groundbreaking for Schiffer . Together, the two created new forms of witty musical theater that included both cabaret and revue elements. With their first piece It is in the air , they made their breakthrough in 1928. The piece can be rated as the first German attempt to write a musical. But because this term was still unknown in Germany at the time, the artists called their piece a revue, and everyone could do something with it. Margo Lion stood on stage with her friend, Marlene Dietrich , who was two years younger than her . Among other things, they sang the ambiguous duet When the best friend with the best friend . From then on, Schiffer was a sought-after author of couplets in Germany during the Weimar Republic .

Grave of Marcellus Schiffer in the Heerstrasse cemetery in Berlin-Westend

Schiffer's acquaintance with the composer Paul Hindemith was also fruitful . This connection resulted in the opera Neues vom Tage in 1929 . Two years earlier he had written the text for Hindemith's short opera Back and forth .

In addition to the composers already mentioned, Marcellus Schiffer also wrote for Friedrich Hollaender , Rudolf Nelson , Werner Richard Heymann and Allan Gray .

On August 24, 1932, he "who had always complained about his eternal and deadly boredom" put an end to his life himself with an overdose of sleeping pills. His grave is on the state's own cemetery in Heerstraße in the Westend district of Berlin (grave location: 4a-62/33).

The extensive Marcellus-Schiffer / Margo-Lion archive is located in Berlin in the archive of the Academy of Arts .

Example of his poetry

Chanson from the company
On society
The company rushes
Society chats.
So is society.
One has to shudder
Chatting through the night
And has been for days
To say nothing to yourself.
That chats critically
And chats politically
Solves all questions
With cheese in the stomach.

Works (selection)

  • Hard-working reader .1926
  • Hetaeric talks. Cabaret revue. Music: Friedrich Hollaender . Premiere 1926 Berlin
  • What you want. Cabaret revue. Music: Friedrich Hollaender. Premiere 1927 Berlin
  • There and back . Sketch with music (short opera). Music: Paul Hindemith . Premiere 1927
  • It's in the air. Revue. Music: Mischa Spoliansky . Premiere 1928
  • Nice and chic. 1928
  • News of the day . Funny opera in three parts. Music: Paul Hindemith. Premiere 1929
  • The Red Thread. Cabaret revue (together with Friedrich Hollaender). Music: Rudolf Nelson . Premiere 1930 Berlin
  • Quick. Cabaret revue (together with Friedrich Hollaender). Music: Rudolf Nelson. Premiere 1930
  • You will hear from us. 1930
  • All dizziness. Revue. Music: Mischa Spoliansky. Premiere 1931
  • Call Mr. Plim. Cabaret opera. Music: Mischa Spoliansky. Premiere 1932
  • Tonight or never. Bat. Music: Mischa Spoliansky. Sung by Jan Kiepura in the film The Song of a Night . Premiere 1932

literature

Web links

Commons : Marcellus Schiffer  - Collection of images, videos and audio files
Wikisource: Marcellus Schiffer  - Sources and full texts

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Klaus Budzinski :  Schiffer, Marcellus. In: New German Biography (NDB). Volume 22, Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 2005, ISBN 3-428-11203-2 , p. 751 ( digitized version ).
  2. ↑ In the Brockhaus Enzyklopädie , 19th edition, Volume 19, page 353, an incorrect year of birth is given (1882).
  3. ↑ a b Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, February 24, 2004, No. 46 / page 34
  4. ^ Hans-Jürgen Mende : Lexicon of Berlin burial places . Pharus-Plan, Berlin 2018, ISBN 978-3-86514-206-1 . P. 494.
  5. ↑ Press release of the Academy of Arts, 2002
personal data
SURNAME Schiffer, Marcellus
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Schiffer, Otto (real name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German writer
DATE OF BIRTH June 20, 1892
PLACE OF BIRTH Berlin
DATE OF DEATH August 24, 1932
Place of death Berlin