Page - 105 - in Entangled Entertainers - Jews and Popular Culture in Fin-de-Siècle Vienna

Jewishness and the Viennese Volkssänger | 105 Th e court hearing that was suspended on 11 May continued two weeks later. Th e judge called a number of witnesses to take the stand. Most relieved Hirsch of the accusation of having damaged the reputation of the Volkssänger. Among oth- ers, H einrich Leitner, the director of the Folies Caprice, who had not yet moved to Vienna from Budapest, spoke in Hirsch’s favor. He denied the accusation that he had concluded a sham contract with Hirsch only to obtain a performance license for Vienna. Contrary to popular assumptions, Hirsch would, together with him, lead the ensemble and occasionally appear on stage as an actor.102 Leit- ner also emphasized that a large part of the group was made up of native Vien- nese rather than Hungarians. He argued in defense of the Folies Caprice much like Modl had done with respect to the Budapest Orpheum Society during the meeting on 21 March. Many of the Volkssänger who were present in the court- room, however, did not believe Leitner’s statements and loudly expressed their dissatisfaction. Nevertheless, the lawsuit against Hirsch collapsed with Leitner’s statements in his defense. After this, nothing stood in the way of the respective plaintiff s reaching a compromise, and the judge was able to persuade them all to come to an agreement. Th e Volkssänger war thus came to an end. Th e Aftermath of the Volkssänger War Th e Volkssänger dispute deeply clouded the relationship between some of them. Th e confl ict seems to have done the most damage to Albert Hirsch. At the end of May 1903, he resigned his position as singspiel hall director of Edelhofer’s Leopoldstadt Folk Orpheum. Despite the plan that he had announced, Hirsch probably did not end up working with the Folies Caprice, as his name did not appear in the group’s performance announcements. Instead, he performed for a while with his own group. However, he was unable to achieve the success he had had in the past. In the fall of 1903, he joined his son-in-law Karl Kassina’s burlesque theater troupe.103 Hirsch had lost his professional independence for the time being. In June 1904, Hirsch set off on a tour of Bohemia and Moravia with an en- semble.104 In doing so, he followed the lead of numerous Volkssänger groups that annually trailed behind the Viennese who left the city during the heat of summer in search of relief. In a sense, they escorted their audiences, performing in well- known vacation destinations and on smaller stages outside Vienna. Th ese groups left the Habsburg capital to try to compensate for what was generally sluggish business in July and August. Hirsch’s guest appearances, however, diff ered from those of other groups. His tour lasted well beyond the summer months. He did not return to Vienna until the middle of November.105 Th is longer absence sug- gests that Hirsch had diffi culties fi nding work in his home city. We also reach this conclusion when we take into consideration the press re- leases detailing Hirsch’s guest spots. Normally, the media did not report on Vien- This open access edition has been made available under a CC BY 4.0 license thanks to the support of Knowledge Unlatched.