Grete Wiesenthal
Grete Wiesenthal ( born December 9, 1885 in Vienna, Austria - Hungary, † June 22, 1970 in Vienna, Austria ) was an Austrian dancer, actress, choreographer and dance teacher.
Life
Training and beginnings
At the age of ten she was accepted into the ballet school of the former Vienna Court Opera, where she studied classical ballet. From 1901 to 1907 she worked there as a dancer. In 1902, she became principal dancer of the Vienna Hofopernballetts and danced the title role in La Muette de Portici.
Despite her success, she left the opera and founded in 1908 with her sisters Elsa and Bertha an independent dance group in which they developed a new, unclassical dance style, which was characterized by special swing techniques.
On January 14, the sisters gave with idiosyncratic interpretations waltz in Vienna Cabaret Fledermaus their debut. Later she undertook tours to Berlin, St. Petersburg, Budapest and Prague. Max Reinhardt engaged her for his pantomime Sumurun.
Grete made in 1910 by her sisters own, when she married the painter Erwin Lang. She studied from 1910 to 1911 with Emile Jaques- Dalcroze in Hellerau and entered 1912 as a kitchen boy in staged by Reinhardt premiere of the opera Ariadne auf Naxos by Richard Strauss. When dancing ambassador of the Viennese waltz, in particular by Johann Strauss ( son ), she reached a great popularity in these years. Her dance style combined elements of classical ballet with those of modern dance. Grete Wiesenthal's dance partner was repeatedly Toni Birkmeyer. Even as a silent film actress, she had some appearances.
Dance group
In 1912, she founded her own dance company and a dance school in 1917 in Vienna. Temporarily, she worked as a theater actress and undertook 1921/22, a tour through Europe. In 1926 she staged ballets at the Vienna State Opera. From 1930 to 1959 she was choreographic assistant at the Salzburg Festival. 1934 to 1952 she taught at the Dance Department of the Academy of Music and Performing Arts in Vienna.
1922 Wiesenthal was on the Author Richard Billinger attention in the Vienna Café Museum, she heard a muffled voice reciting his own verses and gave him his friendship with Hugo von Hofmannsthal. 1928 danced and played it at the opening of the Salzburg Festival in Bill Feininger piece Perchten by Exl- stage in the role of the beautiful Perchtin.
Grete Wiesenthal and Max Reinhardt
Grete Wiesenthal was several times during choreography as active as a dancer performing in productions by Max Reinhardt in performances at the Salzburg Festival. Already in the year of her debut (1908 ), he integrated them with the support of Hugo von Hofmannsthal and her sister Elsa in the Berlin production of Aristophanes ' Lysistrata. 1910 Reinhardt produced by Wiesenthal, the legendary and worldwide later played pantomime Sumurun by Friedrich Fresca, with journeymen tailors and the kitchen boy in Moliere's The Bourgeois Gentleman (Stuttgart 1912) into two further Wiesenthal work for Max Reinhardt. 1928, the already internationally celebrated at this time dancer at the Salzburg Festival. In addition to a dance (together with Toni Birkmeyer ) she also - in a speaking role - in the premiere of Richard Bill Feininger Perchten on, a piece that was called " Dance and Magic game from foolish peasants of the hurricane and the saints." Max Reinhardt's production of Die Fledermaus (Berlin, 1929) was " choreographed " and in collaboration with Grete Wiesenthal.
Nazi period and its aftermath
After the "Anschluss " of Austria, it granted ostracized figures in her home a refuge. In 1945, she was director of the dance department of the Academy of Music and Fine Arts and remained there until 1952. From 1952 to 1959 she was responsible for the Salzburg Festival for the choreography in everyone. Your youth until his retirement from the Vienna Court Opera she described in the autobiography The Rise.
It rests in an honorary dedicated grave in Vienna's Central Cemetery ( 55-13 ). In 1981, the Wiesenthal in Vienna favorite was named after her.
Ballets
Writings
- The climb. 1919 ( autobiography)