Wiljalba Frikell

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Wiljalba Frikell (born June 27, 1817 in Sagan , Silesia ; † October 10, 1903 in Kötzschenbroda , Saxony ; actually Friedrich Wilhelm Frickel ) was a German magician . At the beginning of the 1840s, Frickel added the exotic-sounding, invented first name Wiljalba to his family name in the original spelling . In 1845 he removed the letter C from the name and became Wiljalba Frikel. At the appearances in London in 1851 he doubled the last letter L and shifted the emphasis to the second syllable of Frikell.

Professor Wiljalba Frikell, Illustrated London News from 1858

Live and act

Friedrich Wilhelm Frickel at a young age

First years as a variety magician

Frickel was born in Sagan, Silesia, in 1817 or 1818 as the son of a regimental doctor. At the age of six he was an orphan. He is also considered a self-taught magician. Like many vaudeville artists of his time , he performed his first years in a colorful costume, in his case in a page robe from the time of the French King Louis XIV ; He also used numerous devices for his stage magic. He demonstrated "higher magic or apparent sorcery". In 1835 he is said to have had an appearance in Marienbad , where the Greek King Otto was present and as a result Frickel was appointed his court magician. This was followed, among other things, by a tour through the Middle East, during which he also appeared in front of the Egyptian Khedive Mehemed Ali . There were also some European countries. In these first years the magician Samuel Berlach , who appeared as Bellachini from 1845, was his pupil and assistant.

Back in Germany, Frickel was in Hamburg in 1842 , where he lost all of his stage equipment in the Great Fire .

Development of the manipulator

In the following years developed Frickel a new type magician, the manipulator , mainly without much equipment on stage his audience through his dexterity ( legerdemain , Eng. Sleight of hand) and card tricks knew to enchant (Engl. Cardtricks) and his eloquence. He switched from an exotic costume to an elegant evening suit and performed more or less on an empty stage. He also developed his art to parlor magic, in which the audience had a much smaller distance to the acting artist. One of his main utensils was his "inexhaustible top hat", from which 200 brass cups could be drawn as the highlight of the performance. During this time he met Heinrich Heine in Hamburg .

In 1845 he called himself Wiljalba Frikel; from 1847 he advertised himself as a “magical-physical artist”. In 1851 he was in London . There he wrote his last name with a second L (Frickell) and stressed it on the last syllable. In 1857 he was back in London and called himself "Wizard without Apparatus" (Eng. "Magician without apparatus"). It was there that he was allowed to perform in front of Queen Victoria and her family at Windsor Castle the following year . In the same year a tour to St. Petersburg followed .

In London and later in the United States, he published numerous books in English with card, sleight-of-hand and magic tricks, which were intended to make it possible, above all, for interested amateurs to perform tricks in salons. He also dealt with illusions and conjuring images (mental magic, English conjuring), which he wrote down in his work Hanky ​​panky ( Eng. Hocus pocus).

Retired and toured the USA

At the age of 44, Frikell, who had become wealthy through his art, retired for the first time in 1862 in Warmbrunnen (possibly the health resort (bath) Warmbrunn / Warmbrunnen in the Giant Mountains / Lower Silesia). In the following years he lost his fortune through stock market speculation and through his gambling addiction, so that from 1872 he had to go on a successful tour of the USA , on which he was able to build up a new fortune in the following two years.

Another retirement and withdrawal from the public

Frikell and his wife, October 1903 (about two days before his death)

Through the mediation of a befriended magician colleague from Magdeburg, Frikell also came to Saxony, where he settled in Kötzschenbroda near Dresden . There he installed himself in Ledenweg 6 with a distinctive lettering on the front of Villa Frikell. named house, which he and his wife Marie Cäcilie Bernhardine geb. Heermann (born December 26, 1837 in Sagan / Silesia). Because of his reputation as a "magician", his residence was popularly known as the "Witcher's House of Kötzschenbroda". The villa, which was demolished in 1936, was located directly on Ledenweg in front of the property, which is now occupied by the Ledenweg 8 property after being extended by the former Schulstrasse and the reorganization of the house numbers . With his retirement in the second half of the 1870s, Frikell withdrew almost completely from the public eye, and his last book was published for the time being.

Frikell celebrated his 50th stage anniversary in Kötzschenbroda. In addition, he rarely gave charity appearances, for example in 1892 for people in need in Dresden. On January 10, 1895, he gave his farewell performance from the stage in Dresden on the occasion of the foundation festival of the choral society. In the second half of the 1890s, however, other books by him appeared, at least one of them in German.

Frikell died in 1903 in his villa of "cardiac paralysis". He was buried in the city ​​cemetery . His wife, who died on December 8, 1913, was buried next to him. The only son Adalbert Frickel (* before 1862; † August 26, 1889), like his father also a magician, had died before his parents in England in 1889.

Houdini and Frikell

Houdini in front of Villa Frikell, April 8, 1903

Young Harry Houdini gathered all the information he could get to create a story of magic. In doing so, he learned enough details about 19th century magic to describe many of the claims of the eminent magician Robert-Houdin as misrepresented by the ghostwriter of his memoirs or taken away from other colleagues. So Houdini found out that it was actually Frikell and not Robert-Houdin, who was the first to dispense with costumes and draperies and to use the art of manipulation. And Houdini learned in 1903 that Frikell was still alive and had not already died, as had been generally assumed.

Houdini traveled to Kötzschenbroda near Dresden during his European tour in 1903. After much effort to come to a meeting with the old master of manual dexterity, Houdini only met the deceased in his house.

Honors

Frikell received the Dannebrog Order for civil service from the Danish King Christian VIII because of his extraordinary achievements .

Frikell has a seat in the Society of American Magicians Hall of Fame today .

The American journalist, author and amateur magician Fulton Oursler (1893-1952) gave himself the pseudonym Samri Frikell , made up of the names Samri Baldwin and Wiljalba Frikell .

Works

Magician's Own Book
  • Professor Wiljalba Frikell's Lessons in magic: Or, Two hours of illusions, without the aid of apparatus . 1858.
  • Sociable, or, One thousand and one home amusements: Containing acting proverbs, dramatic charades, acting charades, or drawing-room pantomimes, musical ... being a fund of never-ending entertainment . 1858.
  • The secret out: Or, One thousand tricks with cards, and other recreations. Illustrated with over three hundred engravings. And Containing clear and comprehensive ... in chance, natural magic, etc., etc., etc . 1859.
  • The magician's own book, or the whole art of conjuring. Being a complete hand-book of parlor magic. Dick and Fitzgerald, New York 1862.
  • Fireside games, for winter evening amusement. A repertory of social recreations, containing an explanation of the most entertaining games, suited to the family circle, and also adapted for social gatherings, pic-nics and parties. Dick and Fitzgerald, New York 1859 ( online version ).
  • Parlor tricks with cards: containing explanations of all the tricks and deceptions with playing cards ever invented, embracing tricks with cards performed by skillful manipulation and sleight of hand, by the aid of memory, mental calculation, and the peculiar arrangement of the cards. 1863.
  • Book of riddles and five hundred home amusements, containing a choice and curious collection of riddles, charades, enigmas, rebuses, anagrams, transpositions, conundrums, amusing puzzles, queer sleights, recreations in arithmetic, fireside games, and natural magic, embracing entertaining amusements in magnetism, chemistry, second sight, and simple recreations in science for family and social pastime. Dick and Fitzgerald, New York 1863 ( online version ).
  • The secret out, or, One thousand tricks in drawing-room or white magic: With an endless variety of entertaining experiments. 1871.
  • Hanky ​​panky: A book of conjuring tricks. 1875.
  • The Magician's Own Book . 1877 ( online version ).
  • Parlor magic: Containing directions for performing over one hundred amusing tricks in magic and legerdemain (The People's hand book series) . 1894.
  • The thousand artist; a rich collection of easily executable, highly interesting and surprising sleight of hand and card tricks, amusements from chemistry and arithmetic and jokes, for cheerful entertainment in a cozy circle. 1898.
  • The secret out, or, One thousand tricks with cards, and other recreations. 1899.
  • 150 magic parlor tricks: The secrets of magic simplified for the use of amateurs and beginners. H. Morris, Chicago 1907.

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Collective file no. 222 for the death register of the registry office Kötzschenbroda from 1903; in the Radebeul city archive
  2. ↑ a b c Frank Andert: Condolence instead of audience; An addendum to the "Miracle Man of Kötzschenbroda" . In: Radebeuler Monatshefte eV (Ed.): Preview & Review; Monthly magazine for Radebeul and the surrounding area . January 2014.
  3. ↑ a b c d e Friedrich Wilhelm Frickel.
  4. ^ Frank Andert (Red.): Radebeul City Lexicon . Historical manual for the Loessnitz . Published by the Radebeul City Archives. 2nd, slightly changed edition. City archive, Radebeul 2006, ISBN 3-938460-05-9 , p. 60 .
  5. ^ Frank Andert (Red.): Radebeul City Lexicon . Historical manual for the Loessnitz . Published by the Radebeul City Archives. 2nd, slightly changed edition. Stadtarchiv, Radebeul 2006, ISBN 3-938460-05-9 (Taken from the plan of the district court district of the city of Kötzschenbroda (around 1925), printed on the front endpaper).
  6. ↑ Harry Houdini: The unmasking of Robert-Houdin. In: The Publishers Printing Co. New York 1908 ( online version with Frikell markups ).
  7. ↑ Harry Houdini: Dr. Wiljalba Frikell Still Alive. In: Mahatma. Issue 6, No. 11, New York, May 1903.
  8. ↑ Article about Frikell in the Illustrated London News from 1858. ( Memento of the original from January 2, 2014 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.old-print.net
  9. ^ Society of American Magicians Hall of Fame and Magic Museum
  10. ↑ Samri Frikell in MagicPedia
personal data
SURNAME Frikell, Wiljalba
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Frickel, Friedrich Wilhelm
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German magician
DATE OF BIRTH June 27, 1817 or October 27, 1817 or June 27, 1818
PLACE OF BIRTH Sagan , Silesia
DATE OF DEATH October 10, 1903
Place of death Kötzschenbroda