Page - 57 - in Entangled Entertainers - Jews and Popular Culture in Fin-de-Siècle Vienna

Jewish Volkssänger and Musical Performers in Vienna around 1900 | 57 Viennese population. Only when the Lemberg Singspiel Society and the other two ensembles performed using Jewish jargon did the Folies Caprice appear to them to be a source of competition. Th e S. Fischer Society Th e address 49 Zufahrtstrasse, in the heart of the Viennese Prater, was home to a venue called Zum Marokkaner (the Moroccan), where the S. Fischer Society usu- ally performed. Th e group’s director, Salomon Fischer (1853–1909), was born in Holicz in Moravia and tried his hand at acting when he was a young man. His early attempts in the theater, however, did not pan out. As a result, he instead became a Volkssänger and made his debut on the Brettl in 1873. Incidentally, he was the fi rst of his profession to perform in the Prater all year round, while his colleagues fell back on the theatrical stages in other parts of the city during the winter months.62 When he received his license in 1892, he was able to establish his own company, which he initially co-directed with his wife Paula Baumann, before they parted ways.63 Salomon Fischer is a vivid example of the close ties between Jewish and non-Jewish cultural strands that both contributed to a common Viennese cul- tural tradition. On the one hand, Fischer was fi rmly anchored in the Jewish world, but with his performances he also extended well beyond the Jewish mi- lieu, thus creating a repertoire that in its entirety refl ected Vienna’s metropolitan cultural ambience. He organized Purim festivals and hired actors (albeit not ex- clusively) who had previously been employed by other Jewish theater troupes and who were familiar with the Jewish Volkssänger scene.64 Th ese actors included, for example, Josef Müller, who was born in Budapest in 1852.65 He was primarily known for the songs he composed himself, which he performed in Jewish jargon. On the other hand, Fischer’s repertoire also included plays that had no relation- ship to Judaism at all. In the spring of 1902, he included Ploni Pötzl, the “queen of all yodelers,” in his performance program.66 Th e entertainment staged in Zum Marokkaner thus refl ected a cultural hybridity that was also clearly highlighted in one of Fischer’s pieces, titled Th e Jewish Christmas Tree, which he performed on 25 and 26 December 1901.67 For Fischer, there seemed to be no clear boundaries between the Jewish and non-Jewish worlds. He renegotiated ethnic-cultural affi liations in the context of what he presented on stage, breaking down binary oppositions. In particular, we see this gesture toward critiquing binaries in the play Your Only Patient, written by Louis Taufstein and performed by the S. Fischer Society in 1903.68 Your Only Patient portrays how the Jewish peddler Salamon Eisig is treated by the (non- Jewish) doctor Eulalia Pimperl. Eisig is her only patient. He comes to her offi ce every day and complains of a series of ailments. Over the course of the play, it This open access edition has been made available under a CC BY 4.0 license thanks to the support of Knowledge Unlatched.