Page - 69 - in Entangled Entertainers - Jews and Popular Culture in Fin-de-Siècle Vienna

Jewish Volkssänger and Musical Performers in Vienna around 1900 | 69 turn of the century were the Gschwandner, the Prater-Variété, Brady’ s Wintergar- ten, Weig l’s Variété, the Ronac her, the Colosseum, the Apollo Th eater, Danzer’s Orpheum, and the Budapest Orpheum.129 Th e last fi ve of these establishments on this list were probably the most popular and most well-known entertainment venues in Vienna. In this context, it is rather remarkable that, at least for a short time and sometimes over the course of many years, these establishments all had a Jewish director who was also responsible for the artistic program.130 And it seems that these impresarios were more enthusiastic than their non-Jewish counterparts about introducing the Viennese to international acts from around the world. Presumably, they endeavored to bring the international element as a remedy for Vienna’s intellectual narrowness and provincial atmosphere. Gabor Steiner, for one, was explicitly committed to this goal. At the end of 1930, he wrote in the Illustrierte Wochenpost that he was particularly motivated in his work as a theater director by a desire to make the city more cosmopolitan through international performing acts.131 He also considered himself to have been one of the fi rst to in- vite African Americans to perform i n Vienna.132 As I have already discussed, Ben Tieber also had many international experiences that he put to good use in Vi- enna.133 A look at what the Apollo off ered before and during Ben Tieber’s time as theater director makes for a compelling comparison. Whereas Tieber entertained audiences with a number of international attractions, the performance program in the year before he took over the venue was characterized by Old Viennese clas- sics such as Th e Sweet Guys (Die süssen Buam) and the “Viennese yodeling duet, Kiesel-Marie and Korber.”134 Conclusion I argue that the Volkssänger plays penned by Jewish authors portray Jewishness without reference to religion. In these representations, Jewishness is anything but clearly outlined; instead, it is fl uid, multifaceted, and opaque. In most of these pieces, Jewishness is expressed in a form of performative diff erence: Jews distin- guish themselves from non-Jews through activities or their eff ects. Th is means that Jewish diff erence, as constructed in these works, is time- and context-depen- dent. In addition, this concept of Jewish self-understanding is inclusive, in that even non-Jews can adopt their characteristics. But that does not mean that all dif- ference between Jews and non-Jews is lost (for more on this point, see chapter 5). I have demonstrated through a range of Volkssänger pieces that the Jewishness of the characters is indicated by way of their use of Yiddish-language terms. Th e use of Yiddish is not surprising. As the capital of a multiethnic monarchy, fi n-de- siècle Vienna was the haven of tens of thousands of migrants who brought their own linguistic particularity and made multilingualism a prime character istic of the city. Vienna’s inhabitants connected their various ethnic and cultural identifi - This open access edition has been made available under a CC BY 4.0 license thanks to the support of Knowledge Unlatched.