Olga Lewinsky

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Olga Lewinsky, photographed by Rudolf Krziwanek († 1905)

Olga Lewinsky , b. Precheisen (born July 7, 1853 in Graz , † July 26, 1935 in Vienna ) was an Austrian actress .

Life

Lewinsky was the daughter of an imperial administrator and, according to her father's wishes, was to become governess ; therefore she got a solid education. But since she wanted to go to the theater, she ran away from home and was already on stage at the theater in her hometown at the age of 16 . She made her debut as "Jolanthe" in King Renées Daughter .

On the occasion of a guest performance at the Klagenfurt City Theater , she discovered the actress Josefine Gallmeyer and recommended her to Heinrich Laube and Joseph Lewinsky . The two were delighted with their audition and signed her. On June 21, 1871 she was seen for the first time as "Johanna" ( Maiden of Orleans ) at the Burgtheater . A week later she shone in the role of "Gretchen". The audience was thrilled and the influential theater critic Rudolf Baldek wrote:

... if you go to the essence and the spirit of the performance, you have to call it excellent, even downright unsurpassable, I even add that during almost 20 years of curiosity about the theater, neither in nor outside the Burgtheater I saw a Gretchen which was only able to compete with the warmth of the heart, natural truth, natural freshness and poetry with that of Miss Precheisen. I have never felt this Gretchen fate affect me so deeply and so genuinely in the theater ...

In 1875 she married her colleague Joseph Lewinsky in Vienna; with him she had a daughter, who later became actress Elsa Lewinsky . On September 28, 1873 she gave her official farewell performance as "Julie" and then went to the German Theater in Prague . She stayed there in 1876 and spent the next three years on extensive guest appearances and tours.

Johannes Brahms set his Ophelia songs WoO22 to music for Olga Lewinsky in 1873.

From 1879 to 1884 Precheisen was engaged at the Hoftheater Kassel and then the Alte Theater was committed to Leipzig , where it stayed until February 1889. She then returned to the Court Theater in Vienna, where she was engaged up to and including January 7, 1900. With effect from June 7, 1896, she was honored with the title real court actress .

Lewinsky gave her official farewell performance on January 7, 1902 with the 200th performance of Maria Stuart and said goodbye to the stage. In the same year she accepted another engagement; from September 1 to the summer of 1902 she was seen at the Württemberg Court Theater in Stuttgart . After that she was rarely seen on stage.

Franz-Serafin Exner , the rector of the University of Vienna entrusted her with a teaching position for rhetoric and free speaking , making her one of the first lecturers at this university. She went public in 1910 when she published her late husband's estate. In the 1920s she made some appearances in silent films. She died almost three weeks after her 82nd birthday on July 26, 1935 and found her final resting place in the Protestant cemetery in Vienna- Simmering (I, 489).

Roles (selection)

The actress was first employed in the amateur field, but later also played the great heroines at the Burgtheater .

Filmography

  • 1921/1922: A sunken world
  • 1922: Napoleon in Schönbrunn
  • 1924: the curse

literature

  • Lining:  Lewinsky-Precheisen Olga. In: Austrian Biographical Lexicon 1815–1950 (ÖBL). Volume 5, Verlag der Österreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, Vienna 1972, p. 173.
  • Ludwig Eisenberg : Large biographical lexicon of the German stage in the XIX. Century . Verlag von Paul List , Leipzig 1903, p. 600, ( Textarchiv - Internet Archive ).
  • Michael Wolf, Klaus Edel: Selected celebrity graves at the Evangelical Cemetery Simmering. An introduction to the history of the cemetery and a guide to selected celebrity graves . Published by the Evangelical Press Association in Austria, Vienna 2000.
  • Hans Havelka: The Vienna Central Cemetery . Vienna 1989, p. 128
  • New Krakow writing calendar for the leap year after the birth of Jesus Christ in 1912 . Vienna 1912, p. 84
  • Franz Planer: The Yearbook of the Vienna Society 1928 . Vienna 1928, p. 204

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