Rolf Kutschera

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Vienna Central Cemetery - honorary grave of Susanne Almassy and Rolf Kutschera

Rolf Kutschera (actually Adolf Kucera , also: Adolf Kučera ; * January 6, 1916 in Vienna ; † January 22, 2012 there ) was an Austrian actor , director and theater director .

Life

Until 1945

Born in Vienna- Ottakring , Adolf Kučera was a trained butcher before he embarked on an acting career. He got his first artistic training at the age of seven, after his first attempts at the violin were unsuccessful: “I always scratched it terribly.” He first came into contact with the Theater an der Wien as “ Claqueur ”: “Whoever wanted , could come every day. Of course I was a regular. "

Rolf Kutschera took acting lessons from Rudolf Beer at Scala Vienna and completed his training there in 1936. At first he worked as a pianist , lyricist and composer for cabaret and chansons . In 1937 he got his first engagement at the Theater an der Wien. He made his stage debut in 1938 at the Stadttheater Heidelberg with the title role in Goethe's tragedy Clavigo . This was followed by engagements at the Landestheater Linz (season 1939/1940) and from the season 1940/1941 at the Volkstheater Vienna . Shortly afterwards he was drafted into the Wehrmacht in World War II . Until the theater was closed in 1944, however, he was soon able to play again at the Volkstheater, of which he remained a permanent member of the ensemble until 1945.

Post-war period until 1965

After 1945 Kutschera initially worked as a writer of revues and as a conférencier . After the theater ban ended , he was hired at Scala in Vienna. Subsequently, he worked as an actor and director at the Theater in der Josefstadt , the Wiener Kammerspiele , the Wiener Volkstheater and the Wiener Bürgertheater . By the early 1950s he played around 40 roles; He was mainly used in the role of the "character lover".

From 1950 Kutschera was primarily engaged as an actor and director in Berlin , including at the Renaissance Theater , the Comedy Berlin and the Theater am Kurfürstendamm . Where he was soon referred to as the “King of the Boulevard”, he mainly staged comedies and comedies. He had other engagements at the Hamburger Schauspielhaus , at the Theater am Central in Zurich and at the Komödie Stuttgart . In addition, he continued to play and stage in the Josefstadt, "his Viennese productions such as 'Staatsaffären', 'By candlelight' and 'loner' were considered highlights of the entertainment theater of that time" (obituary ORF ).

His productions in the early 1950s included: Bluebeard's eighth wife by Alfred Savoir (Theater am Central, Zurich), Lieber nach Afrika by Noël Coward (Theater am Central, Zurich), state affairs by Louis Verneuil (Theater am Central, Zurich; Renaissance Theater, Berlin 1955; Komödie Stuttgart; Theater in der Josefstadt), This is not from yesterday by Garson Kanin , The Man of Fate by George Bernard Shaw , The great Katharina (all at the Schauspielhaus Hamburg), Intimacies by Noël Coward (Renaissance -Theater Berlin; Komödie Stuttgart), The Cousin from Warsaw by Louis Verneuil (Renaissance Theater Berlin), Murder by Frederick Knott (Comedy Berlin) and By Candlelight by Rudolf Katscher and Karl Farkas (Comedy Berlin; Theater in der Josefstadt) .

“Musical pioneer” in Vienna from 1965

From April 1965 to 1983 Kutschera was artistic director of the Theater an der Wien , during which time he was responsible for 25 musical productions. During his time, initially Robert Jungbluth and from 1969 Franz Häußler worked as commercial managers . How to become something in life without making an effort was the first production that premiered under his direction.

For his musicals "which were in no way inferior to their original productions from London and New York" and which represented a new genre for Vienna, Kutschera was able to engage a number of well-known actors from Austria and Germany, including Marika Rökk , Dagmar Koller , Harald Juhnke , Theo Lingen , Josef Meinrad , Marianne Mendt and Fritz Muliar.

The Vienna City Councilor for Culture Andreas Mailath-Pokorny praised Kutschera in his obituary in January 2012 as a "musical pioneer" and as the "grandfather of musicals":

“Like hardly anyone else, Rolf Kutschera has contributed to positioning Vienna on the international musical map [...]. In his 17 years of highly successful aegis as director of the Theater an der Wien, he established the then controversial musical in Vienna and initiated a new development with Udo Jürgens' 'Helden, Helden', the first musical produced in Vienna . [He] has shown courage, openness and foresight. [...] The musical in Vienna has many fathers, Rolf Kutschera is the great father. "

- Andreas Mailath-Pokorny : In: Obituary in the town hall correspondence

Productions under his direction

Under his direction, the era of musicals in Vienna began in December 1965 with the production of the Broadway musical How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying at the Theater an der Wien. Further productions under Kutschera's direction were Der Mann von La Mancha (January 1968, with Josef Meinrad , Blanche Aubry and Fritz Muliar ), Hello Dolly! (September 1968, with Marika Rökk ), Anatevka (1969, with Yossi Yadin ), Gigi (1974, with Johannes Heesters and Bela Erny ) and Die Gräfin vom Naschmarkt by Kurt Nachmann and Erwin Halletz (1978, with Marika Rökk). Further successes under Kutschera's direction were the musicals Jesus Christ Superstar (December 1981) and Evita (January 1981, with Isabel Weicken ). Kutschera also wrote chansons , e.g. B. Sweet, little woman (Text: Ditta Duna , once an announcer on ORF television).

Television and cinema

Even before 1945 he played in some film productions of the Vienna Film . After the end of the war he became a busy film actor and director in Austria and Germany . He directed, among others, brilliants from Vienna for ORF, The Conversion of Ferdy Pistora, the television film The Miracle of a Night and the entertainment series Happy Journey. On the screen and on television he was seen in Georg Lhotzky's Scharang film Das doppelte Leben and in Franz Antels Der Bockerer (1981).

Private

Rolf Kutschera was married to the chamber actress Susanne Almássy (1916–2009).

He died on January 22nd, 2012 at the age of 96 and was buried on February 1st in the Vienna Central Cemetery in an honorary grave (group 40, number 77), next to his wife's.

Awards

  • 1971: Professional title Professor
  • 1975: Gold Medal of Honor of the State of Vienna
  • 1980 Gold Medal of Honor from the City of Vienna.

Filmography (selection)

theatre

Radio plays

literature

Web links

Obituaries

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b Adolf Kutschera In: Search for the dead in the grave database of the Vienna cemeteries. Retrieved October 30, 2015.
  2. ↑ a b c d e Obituary from wien.ORF.at, January 23, 2012. In it, Kutschera's own quotations from his biography: Lucky, my memories. Vienna 2010.
personal data
SURNAME Kutschera, Rolf
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Kucera, Adolf (real name); Kučera, Adolf
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Austrian actor, director and theater director
DATE OF BIRTH January 6, 1916
PLACE OF BIRTH Vienna
DATE OF DEATH January 22, 2012
Place of death Vienna