Oscar Fritz Schuh

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Oscar Fritz Schuh (born January 15, 1904 in Munich , † October 22, 1984 in Großgmain near Salzburg ) was a German dramaturge , director and artistic director .

Training and first engagement

Schuh was born the son of a veterinarian. While attending the humanistic Theresien-Gymnasium in Munich , he received a theater correspondent contract with the Berlin magazine Der Fechter , thanks to a false statement of his age, and he also wrote essays on the history of theater and reviews for other magazines. After graduating from high school at the age of 17, Schuh began studying art history and philosophy at the University of Munich and two years later received his first engagement at the Bayerische Landesbühne in Augsburg .

job

Schuh presented his directorial debut with his production of Gerhart Hauptmann's Hanneles Himmelfahrt . This was followed by engagements in Oldenburg , Osnabrück , Darmstadt , Theater Gera (at Walter Bruno Iltz ) and Prague before he in 1931 by Albert Ruch as a director and dramaturge at the Hamburg State Opera was appointed, where he the cornerstone of its cooperation with the set designer Caspar Neher set has been. When Ruch's successor, Karl-Heinz Strohm, moved to the Vienna State Opera in 1940 , Schuh became its chief director . In Vienna he coined - already in the war years under Karl Böhm's direction , and increasingly in the post-war years together with Caspar Neher and the conductor Josef Krips - a new Mozart style, no longer playful, illusionistic and outrated, but simple and focused on psychological conflicts concentrated between the stage characters. The Vienna Mozart Ensemble subsequently celebrated triumphant successes on guest tours to Florence, Nice, Paris, Brussels, Amsterdam and London.

After further engagements and guest performances, including at the Burgtheater in Vienna and at the Salzburg Festival (in collaboration with Karl Böhm), ​​Schuh took over the management of the Berlin Theater on Kurfürstendamm in 1953 and thus changed from an opera to a theater director. He also turned to radio and staged Carlo Goldoni's comedy Mirandolina for RIAS in 1956 . After five years in Berlin, Schuh moved to Cologne in 1959 as general manager of the Städtische Bühnen and finally took over the management of the Deutsches Schauspielhaus Hamburg from 1963 to 1968 as the successor to Gustaf Gründgens .

After his artistic directorship in Hamburg, Schuh worked as a freelance director and founded the Salzburg Street Theater in the 1970s , which he successfully directed together with his wife, the set designer and painter Ursula Schuh , until his death.

effect

Schuh was regarded as a specialist in the production of Mozart operas. Together with the set designer Caspar Neher , as well as the conductors Josef Krips and Karl Böhm , he created the so-called Viennese Mozart style at the Vienna State Opera , which no longer allowed for a set opera but was intended to emphasize the psychology of the characters. Schuh's joint production with Böhm of Mozart's Così fan tutte at the Salzburg Festival was the new benchmark for all subsequent productions of this opera.

His grave is in the Salzburg municipal cemetery .

Awards

Schuh was awarded the German Critics' Prize in 1956 and the Mozart Medal in 1964 .

Fonts

  • Oscar Fritz Schuh: It was like that - was it like that? Notes and memories of a theater man . Ullstein, Berlin, Frankfurt and Vienna 1980, ISBN 3-550-07490-5

literature

Web links

personal data
SURNAME Schuh, Oscar Fritz
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German dramaturge, theater and opera director and general manager
DATE OF BIRTH January 15, 1904
PLACE OF BIRTH Munich
DATE OF DEATH October 22, 1984
Place of death Großgmain near Salzburg