Otto Schenk
Otto Schenk ( born June 12, 1930 in Vienna) is an Austrian actor, comedian, director and theater manager.
Life and work
Otto Schenk was born to Catholic parents. However, since his paternal grandparents were baptized Jews, his father was discriminated against by the Nuremberg Laws in 1938 after the "Anschluss of Austria". Therefore, he lost his previous job as a lawyer. Another pursuit was spared because he was married to a " Aryan " and thus in a "privileged mixed marriage" lived. Otto Schenk in turn had to temporarily join the "German young people," but was a little later, as classified by the Nazis as a " half-breed", again excluded.
After his training at the Max -Reinhardt-Seminar, he began his career in the theater in the Josefstadt and Viennese popular theater. From 1953 he directed various performances in theaters in Vienna directing. In 1957, he staged his first opera ( The Magic Flute by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart) at the Salzburg State Theater. Schenk played and staged in the most important theater and opera houses around the world, including the Vienna Burgtheater, the Munich Chamber games, the Vienna State Opera, the Metropolitan Opera, La Scala and the Royal Opera House in Covent Garden, London. Other opera productions he worked for the German Opera Berlin, the Bavarian State Opera and the Hamburg State Opera.
From 1986 to 1988 Schenk served as a Board Member of the Salzburg Festival from 1988 to 1997, Otto Schenk Director of the Theater in der Josefstadt (together with Robert Jungbluth ). For his expressive interpretations of Wagner, he received in 2009 the " Anton Seidl Award" ( Anton Seidl Award ) of the " Wagner Society of New York."
As a cabaret artist Schenk already occurred in the 1950s at the cabaret Simpl, but enthusiastic in recent decades his audience in the entire German -speaking world with his reading evenings under the motto "things to laugh ." Numerous records accompany this activity in which he always plays the same role - the giver.
Theater ( selection)
Directing
Below is a selection of productions at opera houses and theaters:
Acting roles
Below is a selection of important roles:
Filmography (selection)
- Guaranteed laugh. Collection of jokes. Piper, 2003.
- Outwardly I 'm much younger. A piece of my life. Piper, 2006.
- Things laugh. A reading book. 16th edition. Piper, 2006.
- Who cooks, is your own fault. Pitted memoirs. Amalthea, 2007.
- That's why all the fuss. Nothing is as funny as life. Amalthea 2008.
- It was not always funny. Notes from my first 80 years. Amalthea, 2010.