Max Strakosch

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Max Strakosch (born September 27, 1835 in Brno , † 1892 in New York City ) was a music impresario of Bohemian origin who worked mainly in the USA.

Life

Strakosch followed his older brother Maurice Strakosch to New York in 1853 when he was eighteen. Here he met the family of singers Salvatore Patti and Caterina Barili . The eldest daughter Amelia Patti was his brother's wife, and Max Strakosch was briefly engaged to the youngest daughter Adelina .

In 1855 Strakosch organized the opera season at the New York Academy of Music with his brother Maurice . His brother then began a collaboration with Bernard Ullman ( The Ullman-Strakosch Opera Companie ), in which Max Strakosch was also involved. At the same time he became manager of the Astor Place Opera House . He also organized performances at Niblo's Theater as well as in Havana and Mexico.

In the 1860s Strakosch organized concert tours and performances by musicians such as Louis Moreau Gottschalk , Euphrosyne Parepa-Rosa , Marie Roze , Carlotta and Adelina Patti, Karl Formes , Pasquale Brignoli , Italo Campanini , Pauline Lucca , Therese Tietjens , Christine Nilsson and Marietta Alboni . He has also directed the performance of operas such as Don Pasquale , Norma , Il trovatore , La Favorita , Don Giovanni and Lucrezia Borgia .

In 1870 he had the violin virtuoso and composer Henri Vieuxtemps (1820–1881) undertake his third concert tour to America.

From 1877 to 1880 he directed the Max Strakosch English Opera Company , with which he realized the Canadian premiere of Giuseppe Verdi's Aida in 1879 . In 1880 he founded an opera company with C. D. Hess , with whom he next Aida and Georges Bizet's Carmen aufführte.

literature

  • Eugene H. Cropsey: Crosby's Opera House: symbol of Chicago's cultural awakening . Fairleigh Dickinson Univ. Press, 1999, ISBN 0-8386-3822-8 , p. 101 ff.
  • Marie-Therese Arnbom: Friedmann, Gutmann, Lieben, Mandl and Strakosch: five family portraits from Vienna before 1938 . 2nd Edition. Böhlau Verlag, Vienna 2002, ISBN 320599373X , p. 110
  • Strakosch, Maurice . In: James Grant Wilson, John Fiske (Eds.): Appletons' Cyclopædia of American Biography . tape 5 : Pickering - Sumter . D. Appleton and Company, New York 1888, p. 716 (English, full text [ Wikisource ] - additional entry at the brother).
  • Strakosch, Max. The Vault at Pfaffs
personal data
SURNAME Strakosch, Max
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American opera impresario
DATE OF BIRTH September 27, 1835
PLACE OF BIRTH Brno
DATE OF DEATH 1892
Place of death New York City