Vienna music and theater exhibition 1892

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The Vienna Music and Theater Exhibition 1892 (official name: International Exhibition for Music and Theater ) was a themed "small world exhibition " on the grounds of the 1873 world exhibition held from May 7 to October 9, 1892 in the Vienna Prater around the rotunda .

"Old Vienna" at the theater exhibition

prehistory

According to the memoirs of the music critic Eduard Hanslick , the idea arose from the suggestion of the Viennese mayor Johann Nepomuk Prix to organize an exhibition of musical instruments, autographs, prints and portraits on the hundredth anniversary of Mozart's death in 1891. Princess Pauline Metternich was particularly committed to the plan and pushed for its expansion. ("Why only illustrate the history of music and not also the development of the theater? And why not go beyond an Austrian music and theater exhibition to an international one? So in the ingenious woman's head the original idea kept sprouting new branches and twigs, even in incomprehensibly short At that time a very unique exhibition of its kind was finished ... ")

The Vienna Exhibition Commission was founded to plan the organization and financing, but due to its size (242 members) it was practically incapable of acting. The sub- commission formed as a result was headed by Emil Auspitzer, Philipp Bock was commissioner of the Russian department.

Course of the exhibition

Exhibition poster

This theme-related exhibition, according to Hanslick "in its basic idea and design without predecessors or rivals", finally took place in the summer of 1892. The exclusively musical and theatrical exhibition presented the history of musical art and theater of all nations and times in the rotunda through musical instruments, manuscripts, prints, illustrations and portraits. The lively music was also cultivated through an ongoing series of concerts and opera performances. The architects Fellner & Helmer built a temporary theater, which was especially dedicated to the presentation of “national” operas and comedies. According to Hanslick, Bedřich Smetana's operas, The Bartered Bride and The Kiss, which were previously only known in Prague, won the European audience from here. The Italian ( verismo ) opera performances , however, had the most lively interest . The Milanese publisher Sonzogno brought the then highly popular young Pietro Mascagni to Vienna, and Ruggero Leoncavallo's Pagliacci were also shown.

The exhibition was divided into a historical trade exhibition and a commercial special exhibition . The exhibition was of an international nature, but the German and the Austro-Hungarian sections that were not separated from it dominated the show. “Interiors with the relics of the clay heroes” could be seen there. Mozart, Beethoven, Weber, Meyerbeer, Schumann, Mendelssohn-Bartholdy and Liszt led them. With the “Gibichungenhalle”, Richard Wagner had his own building, in which the legitimacy of German princely families was underpinned with mythological figures. The reign of Emperor Franz Joseph I was presented in the exhibition as a culturally successful epoch and the predominance of Vienna asserted that "under tones and chords it has become the singing soul of the German people". Vienna should become a "peaceful battleground for artistic competition", as the Neue Freie Presse put it on the occasion of the opening. In the background stood the competition from the city ​​of Berlin, which has grown rapidly since the establishment of the Empire .

Of lasting historical interest are pictorial documents of the set-like reconstruction of a "piece of old Vienna ", which is based on the appearance of the Hoher Markt in the 16th – 18th centuries. Century on the occasion of the exhibition in the Vienna Prater. Ludwig Gottsleben produced himself as a Viennese Hanswurst on a wooden stage .

Despite unfavorable weather conditions - 68 out of 156 days were rainy - the exhibition attracted around 1.25 million visitors. Financially it was a failure, which was mainly attributed to the low rental income.

Aftermath

"Old Vienna" at the 1893 World's Fair in Chicago.

The reconstruction of the Hoher Markt was shown under the title Old Vienna on the occasion of the 1893 World's Columbian Exposition in Chicago .

The exhibition played a major role in making the old Viennese Volkstheater popular again, and helped conservative voices like Adam Müller who wanted to counteract the urbanization of the Viennese music and theater world (i.e. the more modern forms of events vaudeville , music hall , variety theater , revue ) -Guttenbrunn . In this way, it created a basis for the historicist theaters to be founded in the following years ( Raimund Theater 1893, Kaiser Jubilee City Theater 1898).

In the long term, it paved the way for Vienna's tourist image as a city of music and theater.

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b Eduard Hanslick: From my life . Edited by Peter Wapnewski. Bärenreiter, Kassel / Basel 1987, ISBN 3-7618-0824-0 , 10th book, see web link.
  2. ^ Ludwig Eisenberg : Large biographical lexicon of the German stage in the XIX. Century . Verlag von Paul List , Leipzig 1903, p. 106, ( Textarchiv - Internet Archive ).
  3. ↑ Martina Nussbaumer: The Topos 'Vienna City of Music' . In: Newsletter Moderne 4: 2001, no. 1, pp. 20–23. (online) (PDF, 114kb)

literature

  • Siegmund Schneider (Ed.): The International Exhibition for Music and Theater Vienna 1892 . Perles, Vienna 1894.
  • Oskar Fleischer : The importance of the international music and theater exhibition in Vienna for the art and science of music , Leipzig 1894.
  • Felix Czeike : Historical Lexicon Vienna . Volume 4. Kremayr & Scheriau, Vienna 1995, ISBN 3-218-00546-9 , p. 337.
  • Wolfgang Kos, Christian Rapp : Old Vienna. The city that never was. (Exhibition catalog Wien Museum ). Czernin, Vienna 2004, ISBN 3-7076-0193-5 .
  • Julia Danielczyk: The International Exhibition for Music and Theater in Vienna 1892 and its image-building function. In: Stefan Hulfeld, Birgit Peter (eds.): Mask and Kothurn. Vol. 55. H 2 (2009) pp. 11-22.

Web links