Margherita Wallmann

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Margherita Wallmann (1970)

Margarete Wallmann , also Margarethe or Margarita or Margherita , also Wallman (born June 22 or July 22, 1901 or 1904 in Berlin or Vienna ; † May 2, 1992 in Monaco ) was a dancer, choreographer, set designer and opera director. With the length of her career and the number of her productions, she holds a top position among opera directors.

Life

Wallmann's place and dates of birth are just as uncertain as the details of her family origins. The memoir Les balcons du ciel , which she published in 1976 under the name Margarita Wallmann, does not report anything on this, but is limited to the presentation of events in connection with her later career as a choreographer and director.

Wallmann started out as a dancer. After classical training with Eugenia Eduardowa (1882–1960) in Berlin, later with Heinrich Kröller (1880–1930) and Anna Ornelli in Munich, she studied with Mary Wigman in Dresden from 1923 and went with their troop, including Hanya Holm and Gret Palucca were on tour. In 1928 she traveled to New York and gave lectures there on Wigman's expressionist expressive dance . From 1929 she was director of the Wigman School in Berlin. In Edith Türckheim she had her most talented student, who later continued to wear the Wigman style as a studio manager. In 1930 she founded her own troupe, the dancer collective , which in the following year already had 37 members. The first sensational production was the "movement drama" Orpheus Dionysos by Felix Emmel with Wallmann as Euridike and Ted Shawn as Orpheus. Shawn then hired Wallmann to teach at the Denishawn School of Dancing and Related Arts in Los Angeles, which he co-founded . In 1931 the troupe premiered Emmel's “Dance Mysteries Game” The Last Judgment at the Salzburg Festival . Wallmann also worked in Salzburg in the following years, but was unable to dance himself after a serious accident.

In 1933 she moved to Vienna and from 1934 she was ballet master at the State Opera there . In 1938, after the annexation of Austria , she was fired because of her Jewish descent, as was her husband Hugo Burghauser , with whom she was already divorced. While he emigrated on September 12, 1938 via Hungary, Yugoslavia and Italy to Canada and finally to the USA, Wallmann was engaged at the Teatro Colón in Buenos Aires, where he built a ballet ensemble.

1949 returned Wallmann back to Europe and became head of the ballet of the Milan Scala , with which, inter alia 1958 Vita dell'uomo of Alberto Savinio worked. In addition, she directed from 1952, among important operas were several with Maria Callas . In 1953 she directed Medea by Luigi Cherubini , conducted by Leonard Bernstein , 1954 Alceste by Christoph Willibald Gluck , conducted by Carlo Maria Giulini , Norma by Vincenzo Bellini , Un ballo in maschera by Giuseppe Verdi and in 1958 Turandot by Giacomo Puccini with Birgit Nilsson .

Wallmann was also involved in important world premieres, including 1955 David by Darius Milhaud , 1955 Der fierige Engel by Sergei Prokofjew , 1957 Les Dialogues des Carmélites by Francis Poulenc , 1958 Murder in the Cathedral by Ildebrando Pizzetti , 1962 Atlántida by Manuel de Falla and L'opéra d'Aran by Gilbert Bécaud , 1969 The Devils of Loudun by Krzysztof Penderecki and Andrea del Sarto by Jean-Yves Daniel-Lesur and in 1974 Antoine et Cléopatre by Emmanuel Bondeville.

She staged La Gioconda by Amilcare Ponchielli in 1966 at the Metropolitan Opera and Turandot by Giacomo Puccini, Les Troyens by Hector Berlioz, Un ballo in maschera and Don Carlos by Giuseppe Verdi at the Opéra National de Paris . At the Deutsche Oper Berlin she staged Turandot by Giacomo Puccini and La forza del destino by Giuseppe Verdi.

Movies

memoirs

  • Les balcons du ciel. Mémoires. Robert Laffont, 1976.
  • New edition under the title: Sous le ciel de l'opéra. Mémoires. Felin, 2004, ISBN 2-86645-562-2 .

literature

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Austrian Music Lexicon
  2. ↑ Alexander Mejstrik & al., Occupational damage in the National Socialist reorganization of work, Oldenbourg Wissenschaftsverlag, 2004, p. 528 books.google
personal data
SURNAME Wallmann, Margherita
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Wallmann, Margarita; Wallmann, Margarete; Wallmann, Margarethe; Wallman, Margarita; Wallman, Margaret; Wallman, Margarethe; Wallmann, Margherita
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German-Austrian dancer, choreographer, opera director, set designer
DATE OF BIRTH 1901 or 1904
PLACE OF BIRTH Berlin
DATE OF DEATH May 2, 1992
Place of death Monaco