The Johann Strauss Society commemorated the most successful Austrian actor of all time on the occasion of his 150th birthday

 

He was the most popular and most admired actor Austria has ever produced: Alexander Girardi. In a time without radio, television or the internet, he achieved a level of fame and admiration that can hardly be imagined today. Decades before his death, he was already regarded as a legend and a living monument. The great Alexander Moissi, the first Salzburg “Jedermann“, described him in an obituary as an actor in whom one did not see the performer, but only the human being. Even during his lifetime, a Berlin critic described him as „ a quiet example of perfection“. Alexander Girardi (1850 – 1918) maintained personal contact with Emperor Franz Joseph and was a friend of Johann Strauss. He played the leading roles in the premieres of more than half of Strauss’s operettas. The Waltz King wrote roles specifically tailored to his personality and his voice and so did Karl Millöcker, Carl Zeller, Franz Lehár, and Edmund Eysler.

To commemorate this co-creator of significant Viennese operettas, the Johann Strauss Society of Vienna organized a matinée on the occasion of the 150th anniversary of his birth – Girardi was born in Graz on 5th December 1850. His musical and textual contributions to masterpieces such as Der Bettelstudent, Der Zigeunerbaron and Die Fledermaus had a great impact on the interpretation of Viennese operetta, which continues to this day. On 17th December 2000, distinguished Austrian artists presented an overview of the life and aristic development of this inimitable and unforgettable performer at the Theater Akzent – near the “Theresianum“, the former summer residence of the Habsburg emperors in Vienna’s fourth district. Stage actress Marianne Nentwich from the Theater in der Josefstadt and stage actor Rudolf Buczolich from the Vienna Burgtheater, both of whom had attained additional prominence through television appearances, outlined to a large audience the highs and lows of Girardi’s life. Kammersänger Heinz Zednik of the Vienna State Opera, together with Peter Widholz, who had initiated and organized the event on behalf of the Johann Strauss Society, provided  musical illustrations to complement these accounts. Zednik sang the waltz song „Nur für Natur“, through which Johann Strauss had facilitated Girardi’s artistic breakthrough, and Widholz performed the well-known song „Küssen ist keine Sünd“, with which Girardi, in turn, had helped Edmund Eysler achieve his breakthrough years later. Herbert Prikopa accompanied the two tenors sensitively and authentically on the piano.

Girardi’s own voice was also heard. Hofrat Dr. Rainer Hubert of the Austrian Phonothek presented two historic recordings – Girardi had sung into a recording horn –  the immortal „Fiakerlied“, which the versatile artist himself had once premiered. The Phonothek, now known as the Austrian Mediathek, is a state sound archive that preserves some sixty such recordings by Girardi, all dating from the early years of the twentieth century.

Since Alexander Girardi came to be identified above all with the role of Valentin in Ferdinand Raimund’s „Der Verschwender“ („The spendthrift“) – a role in which he is also immortalized in his monument on Vienna’s Karlsplatz – Rudolf Buczolich concluded the matinée with the “Hobellied“ from that work. The audience responded with prolonged applause, thanking the artists for their performance in memory of their great, incomparable predecessor, an immortal, unattainable model.

 

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