Louis Treumann (born Alois Pollitzer, 3 March 1872 – 5 March 1943) was an Austrian actor and operetta tenor. Treumann and his wife spent their last few months in a German concentration camp, dying a few months apart. Born in

Vienna Vienna ( ; ; ) is the capital city, capital, List of largest cities in Austria, most populous city, and one of Federal states of Austria, nine federal states of Austria. It is Austria's primate city, with just over two million inhabitants. ...

, Treumann was the son of Jewish merchants. He spent his twenties working backstage and in smaller roles, before achieving his breakthrough in 1902 in

Franz Lehár Franz Lehár ( ; ; 30 April 1870 – 24 October 1948) was an Austro-Hungarian composer. He is mainly known for his operettas, of which the most successful and best known is '' The Merry Widow'' (''Die lustige Witwe''). Life and career L ...

's ' opposite

Mizzi Günther Mizzi Günther (8 February 1879 – 18 March 1961) was a Bohemian-Viennese operetta soprano. Günther was born in Warnsdorf, Bohemia (now the Czech Republic). Her debut was in 1897 in Hermannstadt, now Sibiu, the part of the Austro-Hungarian Em ...

In 1905 he created the role of Count Danilo Danilovitsch in Lehár's ''

Die lustige Witwe ''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 ...

'' (''The Merry Widow''). During the second half of the 1920s he appeared in several silent films, such as ''Der Rastelbinder'' (1927), ''Flucht in die Fremdenlegion'' (1929), '' Spiel um den Mann'' (1929), '' Trust der Diebe'' (1929), '' Katharina Knie'' (1929) and ''Die Warschauer Zitadelle'' (1930). During the 1930s, as a Jew, his opportunities to perform suffered, and his final appearance was in 1935. In 1942 he was arrested and taken to a transit camp. His colleague, the actor

Theo Lingen Theo Lingen (; 10 June 1903 – 10 November 1978), born Franz Theodor Schmitz, was a German actor, film director and screenwriter. He appeared in more than 230 films between 1929 and 1978, and directed 21 films between 1936 and 1960. Life and c ...

was able to get him released, but soon afterwards he was arrested again. He was repeatedly scheduled for transport to a concentration camp, each time saved by influential friends such as Franz Lehár. However on 28 July 1942, aged 70 years old, Treumann was finally deported to Theresienstadt together with his wife Stefanie. She died just two months later, and her death plunged Treumann into a deep depression. A few months later, on 5 March 1943, still in the

Theresienstadt Theresienstadt Ghetto was established by the SS during World War II in the fortress town of Terezín, in the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia ( German-occupied Czechoslovakia). Theresienstadt served as a waystation to the extermination c ...

concentration camp, he too died. In 1955, Treumanngasse in

Hietzing Hietzing () is the 13th Districts of Vienna, district of Vienna (). It is located west of the central districts, west of Meidling. Hietzing is a heavily populated urban area with many residential buildings, but also contains large areas of the Vi ...

district was named after him.

Recordings

Franz Lehár, "O Vaterland, du machst bei Tag" from The Merry Widow. Louis Treumann and Orchestra, cond. Franz Hampe (1906)
(MP3; 1.3 MB)
Franz Lehár, "Lippen schweigen" from The Merry Widow. Mizzi Günther, Louis Treumann and Orchestra, cond. Franz Hampe (1906)
(MP3; 1.7 MB)

References

* Ludwig Eisenberg: ''Großes biographisches Lexikon der Deutschen Bühne im XIX. Jahrhundert''.

Paul List Pawel M. List (, ; Odesa, 9 September 1887 – London? 1954) was a Russian Jewish chess player, who emigrated to Britain in 1937 but never took British citizenship. He was born in Odesa, Ukraine (then Russian Empire). He had a separate chess ...

, Leipzig 1903, p.1049, () *

Felix Czeike Felix Czeike (21 August 1926 – 23 April 2006) was an Austrian historian and popular educator. He was an author and partly also editor of numerous publications on the history of Vienna and was the director of the . His main work is the six-volume ...

: ''Historisches Lexikon Wien''. Kremayr & Scheriau, Wien 1997, (Band 5), p.476 * Christian Fastl: ''Treumann, Louis'' in: ''Oesterreichisches Musiklexikon''. Printed edition: Volume 5, Austrian Academy of Sciences, Vienna 2006, *

Kay Weniger Kay Weniger (born 1956) is an Austrian writer of books on media issues. He published an eight-volume encyclopaedia on international film people. Biography Weniger is the son of the German stage and film actress and the Austrian stage actor ...

: ''Zwischen Bühne und Baracke. Lexikon der verfolgten Theater-, Film- und Musikkünstler 1933 bis 1945''. Foreword by

Paul Spiegel Paul Spiegel (31 December 1937, in Warendorf, Germany – 30 April 2006, in Düsseldorf, Germany) was leader of the Central Council of Jews in Germany (Zentralrat der Juden in Deutschland) and the main spokesman of the German Judaism, Jews. He was ...

. Metropol, Berlin 2008, , p.351 *

Karl-Josef Kutsch Karl-Josef Kutsch, also known as K. J. Kutsch, (born 11 May 1924) is a German physician and music biographer. With the Dutch musicologist Leo Riemens he co-authored the ''Großes Sängerlexikon'', the standard reference for opera singers. Life ...

Leo Riemens Leonardus Antony Marinus Riemens (3 December 1910 – 3 April 1985) was a Dutch musicologist and cultural journalist. He wrote a book about Maria Callas, and together with Karl-Josef Kutsch began a reference book about opera singers in 1962, whic ...

: ''

Großes Sängerlexikon ''Großes Sängerlexikon'' (''Biographical Dictionary of Singers'', literally: Large singers' lexicon) is a single-field dictionary of singers in classical music, edited by Karl-Josef Kutsch and Leo Riemens and first published in 1987. The fi ...

.'' Third edition, Berlin 2000, p.24453ff

External links

*
Treumann, Louis (eig. Pollitzer, Alois)
(in German)

Oesterreichisches Musiklexikon The ''Oesterreichisches Musiklexikon'Oesterreichisch'' with ''Oe'' is the spelling of the print and online output. (, ) is a five-volume music encyclopedia founded by the Austrian Academy of Sciences' Commission for Music Research. It was offic ...

{{DEFAULTSORT:Treumann, Louis 1872 births 1943 deaths Austrian male film actors Austrian male stage actors Austrian people who died in the Theresienstadt Ghetto Austrian tenors Jewish Austrian male actors 20th-century Austrian male actors 20th-century Austrian male opera singers Male actors from Austria-Hungary