Markus Kupferblum (born 12 June 1964) is an Austrian theatre and opera director, playwright and clown. He founded the first Austrian Fringe Opera Company, Totales Theater, in Vienna and is an expert on commedia dell'arte and mask theatre.[1]
He studied at the University of Vienna, at the School of Philippe Gaulier and Monika Pagneux in Paris and at New York University. He was assistant to Antoine Vitez and Achim Freyer.
Since 2013, he has been the founder and director of the interdisciplinary music theatre ensemble Schlüterwerke in Vienna.
He has directed and shown productions in France, Austria, Germany, England, Spain, Belgium, the United States of America, Korea, Armenia, Lebanon, Iran, Israel, Russia, Lithuania, Luxemburg, Peru, Turkey, Switzerland, and Italy.
He was awarded the "1. Prix de l'Humour" at the Avignon Festival in 1993 and is known for working across the genres of opera, circus, theatre, and film and exploring unusual performance spaces for his productions.
In 2007 he received the Nestroy Theatre Prize for the best German-language fringe production for his play The Abandoned Dido.[2]
In 2012 he founded the European Theatre Day of Tolerance which is commemorated on every 1 February. On this occasion a Memorandum for peace and tolerance is read before the performances of almost 1,000 theaters throughout Europe and beyond.
In 2013 his book Die Geburt der Neugier aus dem Geist der Revolution. Die Commedia dell'Arte als politisches Volkstheater was published by Facultas, Vienna University Press.
2019 he received the Operetta Award "Operetten Frosch" by the Bavarian National Radio for his production of the Operetta Cloclo by Franz Lehár.[3]
He is a member of the International P.E.N. Club.
Notes
↑ Neundlinger, Helmut (2007). "Story of a Clown". DATUM (in German). Vienna: Verein zur Förderung des Qualitätsjournalismus (7–08). Archived from the original on 7 July 2007. Retrieved 15 February 2009.
Harlequin is the best-known of the zanni or comic servant characters from the Italian commedia dell'arte, associated with the city of Bergamo. The role is traditionally believed to have been introduced by Zan Ganassa in the late 16th century, was definitively popularized by the Italian actor Tristano Martinelli in Paris in 1584–1585, and became a stock character after Martinelli's death in 1630.
Operetta is a form of theatre and a genre of light opera. It includes spoken dialogue, songs, and dances. It is lighter than opera in terms of its music, orchestral size, length of the work, and at face value, subject matter. Apart from its shorter length, the operetta is usually of a light and amusing character. It sometimes also includes satirical commentaries.
Pierrot is a stock character of pantomime and commedia dell'arte, whose origins are in the late seventeenth-century Italian troupe of players performing in Paris and known as the Comédie-Italienne. The name is a diminutive of Pierre (Peter), via the suffix -ot. His character in contemporary popular culture — in poetry, fiction, and the visual arts, as well as works for the stage, screen, and concert hall — is that of the sad clown, often pining for love of Columbine, who usually breaks his heart and leaves him for Harlequin. Performing unmasked, with a whitened face, he wears a loose white blouse with large buttons and wide white pantaloons. Sometimes he appears with a frilled collaret and a hat, usually with a close-fitting crown and wide round brim and, more rarely, with a conical shape like a dunce's cap.
Harlequinade is a British comic theatrical genre, defined by the Oxford English Dictionary as "that part of a pantomime in which the harlequin and clown play the principal parts". It developed in England between the 17th and mid-19th centuries. It was originally a slapstick adaptation or variant of the Commedia dell'arte, which originated in Italy and reached its apogee there in the 16th and 17th centuries. The story of the Harlequinade revolves around a comic incident in the lives of its five main characters: Harlequin, who loves Columbine; Columbine's greedy and foolish father Pantaloon, who tries to separate the lovers in league with the mischievous Clown; and the servant, Pierrot, usually involving chaotic chase scenes with a bumbling policeman.
Franz Lehár was an Austro-Hungarian composer. He is mainly known for his operettas, of which the most successful and best known is The Merry Widow.
Emmerich Kálmán was a Hungarian composer of operettas and a prominent figure in the development of Viennese operetta in the 20th century. Among his most popular works are Die Csárdásfürstin (1915) and Gräfin Mariza (1924). Influences on his compositional style include Hungarian folk music, the Viennese style of precursors such as Johann Strauss II and Franz Lehár, and, in his later works, American jazz. As a result of the Anschluss, Kálmán and his family fled to Paris and then to the United States. He eventually returned to Europe in 1949 and died in Paris in 1953.
The Merry Widow is an operetta by the Austro-Hungarian composer Franz Lehár. The librettists, Viktor Léon and Leo Stein, based the story – concerning a rich widow, and her countrymen's attempt to keep her money in the principality by finding her the right husband – on an 1861 comedy play, L'attaché d'ambassade by Henri Meilhac.
The Theater an der Wien is a historic theatre in Vienna located on the Left Wienzeile in the Mariahilf district. Completed in 1801, the theatre has hosted the premieres of many celebrated works of theatre, opera, and symphonic music. Since 2006, it has served primarily as an opera house, hosting its own company.
Johann Nepomuk Eduard Ambrosius Nestroy was a singer, actor and playwright in the popular Austrian tradition of the Biedermeier period and its immediate aftermath. He participated in the 1848 revolutions and his work reflects the new liberal spirit then spreading throughout Europe.
Leopold Fall was an Austrian Kapellmeister and composer of operettas.
Alfred Maria Willner was an Austrian writer, philosopher, musicologist, composer and librettist.
Der Graf von Luxemburg is an operetta in three acts by Franz Lehár to a German libretto by Alfred Willner, Robert Bodanzky, and Leo Stein. A Viennese take on bohemian life in Paris at the beginning of the 20th century, the story revolves around an impoverished aristocrat and a glamorous opera singer who have entered into a sham marriage without ever seeing each other and later fall in love at first sight, unaware that they are already husband and wife.
The Dell'Arte International School of Physical Theatre is a private school in Blue Lake, California. It offers a NAST-accredited three-year MFA in Ensemble-Based Physical Theatre, a one-year professional training program, summer workshops, and a study abroad program in Bali. The school also has a professional company in residence, the Dell'Arte Company.
The Carltheater was a theatre in Vienna. It was in the suburbs in Leopoldstadt at Praterstraße 31.
Victor Léon, also Viktor Léon was a well-known Jewish Austrian-Hungarian librettist. He collaborated with Leo Stein to produce the libretto of Franz Lehár's romantic operetta The Merry Widow.
Max Hansen , also known as 'The Little Caruso', was a Danish singer, cabaret artist, actor, and comedian.
Commedia dell'arte was an early form of professional theatre, originating from Italian theatre, that was popular throughout Europe between the 16th and 18th centuries. It was formerly called Italian comedy in English and is also known as commedia alla maschera, commedia improvviso, and commedia dell'arte all'improvviso. Characterized by masked "types", commedia was responsible for the rise of actresses such as Isabella Andreini and improvised performances based on sketches or scenarios. A commedia, such as The Tooth Puller, is both scripted and improvised. Characters' entrances and exits are scripted. A special characteristic of commedia is the lazzo, a joke or "something foolish or witty", usually well known to the performers and to some extent a scripted routine. Another characteristic of commedia is pantomime, which is mostly used by the character Arlecchino, now better known as Harlequin.
Albin August Heinrich Emil Swoboda was an Austrian operatic tenor, actor, and opera director of German birth. One of the most famous opera singers of the "Golden Age" of Viennese operetta, he was a leading tenor and dramatic stage actor at the Theater an der Wien from 1859–1878. He notably appeared in the world premieres of operettas by composers Jacques Offenbach, Johann Strauss II, and Franz von Suppé. He also appeared in musical comedies and plays in Vienna, and appeared in stage productions of all kinds as a guest artist in theatres in Germany, Hungary, Poland, and Russia. His son Albin Swoboda Jr. also had a successful career as an opera singer. In 1955 a street in the Hietzing district of Vienna was named after him.
Kerry James Casey was an Australian actor, writer, director, and performance teacher. He worked in bilingual theatre in Australia with companies using Greek, French, Vietnamese, and Italian languages and cultures in performance.
Matthias Karl Ludwig Treumann was an Austrian actor, operetta singer (tenor), theatre director and writer.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply. Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.
