Page - 62 - in Entangled Entertainers - Jews and Popular Culture in Fin-de-Siècle Vienna
Image of the Page - 62 -
Text of the Page - 62 -
62 | Entangled Entertainers
no alternative, “more suitable,” form of Jewishness. We might conclude from
Hirsch’s portrayal that it is preferable if Jewishness not play a role at all.
Albert Hirsch’s daughter Anna married Karl Kassina (1863–1909). Kassina
started out as a Hirsch Society performer and in December 1901 received his
own license to operate a singspiel.82 Even when Anna and Karl Kassina left to
form their own group, the two troupes maintained close professional and per-
sonal ties. Whenever the demand for Volkssänger abated, one of the troupes
would temporarily disband and the Hirsch family would fi
nd work with the Kas-
sinas, or vice versa. At the same time, there was a lively exchange between the two
groups. It is worth noting here that the Kassina Ensemble regularly performed
at the inn Neufellner’s Restauration, located on the Lerchenfelder Gürtel in the
sixteenth district, where Jews only made up about 2 percent of the population.
We may therefore conclude that the group’s performances also attracted a num-
ber of non-Jews.
Th e Budapest Orpheum Society
Th
e Budapest Orpheum Society was probably the most well-known Jewish
Volkssänger ensemble in all of Vienna. Because a monograph and several articles
have already been devoted to this subject, I off
er here only a brief outline of the
group’s history.83
Th
e reference to Budapest in the name is linked to the group’s origins. Some
members of the ensemble, though they were for the most part originally from
Vienna, had previously worked in the Hungarian capital. Th
e reason for this
was that Budapest was the central European center of Jewish jargon comedy,
and it had a much larger and more vivid entertainment scene than Vienna.84 In
addition, the large singspiel halls that were mostly directed by Jewish impresarios
held their performances in German, which meant that Viennese entertainers did
not have to contend with a language barrier. Georg Wacks explains that Matthias
Bernhard Lautzky (18
19–1901), who had a license to operate a singspiel hall,
traveled to Budapest in the spring of 1889 to fi
nd Volkssänger willing to join him
in establishing his own ensemble in Vienna.85 He quickly found what he was
looking for. Together with Josef Modl (1863–1915), who was also a well-known
folk singer, Lautzky founded the Budapest Orpheum Society.86 Modl was in
charge of the artistic direction. We should note here that Lautzky was not Jewish.
In establishing with Modl one of the most important and famous entertainment
groups in Vienna, Lautzky serves as a prime example for the mutual cooperation
between Jews and non-Jews in the creation of popular cultural entertainment
forms in the Habsburg metropolis. Initially, Lautzky and Modl chose the hotel
Zum Schwarzen Adler, located i
n 11 Taborstrasse, as the performance venue for
the Budapest Orpheum Society.
This open access edition has been made available under a CC BY 4.0 license thanks to the support of Knowledge Unlatched.
Entangled Entertainers
Jews and Popular Culture in Fin-de-Siècle Vienna
- Title
- Entangled Entertainers
- Subtitle
- Jews and Popular Culture in Fin-de-Siècle Vienna
- Author
- Klaus Hödl
- Publisher
- Berghahn Books
- Date
- 2019
- Language
- English
- License
- CC BY 4.0
- ISBN
- 978-1-78920-031-7
- Size
- 14.86 x 23.2 cm
- Pages
- 196
- Categories
- Geschichte Vor 1918
- International
Table of contents
- Introduction 1
- 1. Jews in Viennese Popular Culture around 1900 as Research Topic 13
- 2. Jewish Volkssänger and Musical Performers in Vienna around 1900 44
- 3. Jewishness and the Viennese Volkssänger 78
- 4. Jewish Spaces of Retreat at the Turn of the Twentieth Century 121
- 5. From Difference to Similarity 148
- Conclusion 163
- Bibliography 166
- Index 179