Marcel Prawy
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Marcel Prawy (birth name: ''Marcel Horace Frydmann,
Ritter Ritter (German for "knight") is a designation used as a title of nobility in German-speaking areas. Traditionally it denotes the second-lowest rank within the nobility, standing above " Edler" and below "" (Baron). As with most titles and desig ...
von Prawy'') (born 29 December 1911, 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. ...
– died 23 February 2003, in Vienna) was an Austrian
dramaturg A dramaturge or dramaturg (from Ancient Greek δραματουργός – dramatourgós) is a literary adviser or editor in a theatre, opera, or film company who researches, selects, adapts, edits, and interprets scripts, libretti, texts, and pr ...
,
opera Opera is a form of History of theatre#European theatre, Western theatre in which music is a fundamental component and dramatic roles are taken by Singing, singers. Such a "work" (the literal translation of the Italian word "opera") is typically ...
connoisseur A connoisseur (French language, French Reforms of French orthography, traditional, pre-1835, spelling of , from Middle-French , then meaning 'to be acquainted with' or 'to know somebody/something') is a person who has a great deal of knowledge ...
and opera
critic A critic is a person who communicates an assessment and an opinion of various forms of creative works such as Art criticism, art, Literary criticism, literature, Music journalism, music, Film criticism, cinema, Theater criticism, theater, Fas ...
. He was born into a
Jewish Jews (, , ), or the Jewish people, are an ethnoreligious group and nation, originating from the Israelites of History of ancient Israel and Judah, ancient Israel and Judah. They also traditionally adhere to Judaism. Jewish ethnicity, rel ...
Austro-Hungarian noble family and studied law, but his life belonged to the opera. He became secretary of the tenor
Jan Kiepura Jan Wiktor Kiepura (Polish: ; May 16, 1902 – August 15, 1966) was a Polish opera singer (lyric tenor / lirico spinto, Heldentenor) and actor. He enjoyed a successful international career and performed at leading concert halls around the w ...
and they both emigrated to the United States when persecution of the Austrian Jews became unbearable in the late 1930s. With the help of his confidante
Mártha Eggerth Marta Eggerth (17 April 1912 – 26 December 2013) was a Hungarian actress and singer from "The Silver Age of Operetta". Many of the 20th century's most famous operetta composers, including Franz Lehár, Fritz Kreisler, Robert Stolz, Oscar Str ...
(Jan Kiepura’s wife), Prawy became acquainted with American musicals and music in general. After the end of the
Second World War World War II or the Second World War (1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945) was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War II, Allies and the Axis powers. World War II by country, Nearly all of the wo ...
, Prawy returned to Vienna and brought with him the
musical Musical is the adjective of music. Musical may also refer to: * Musical theatre, a performance art that combines songs, spoken dialogue, acting and dance * Musical film Musical film is a film genre in which songs by the Character (arts), charac ...
''
Kiss Me, Kate ''Kiss Me, Kate'' is a musical with music and lyrics by Cole Porter and a book by Bella and Samuel Spewack. The story involves the production of a musical version of William Shakespeare's ''The Taming of the Shrew'' and the conflict on and off- ...
''. It was received by the Viennese with great reservation as they feared the arrival of the American-style musical would spell the end of the traditional Viennese
operetta Operetta is a form of theatre and a genre of light opera. It includes spoken dialogue, songs and including dances. It is lighter than opera in terms of its music, orchestral size, and length of the work. Apart from its shorter length, the oper ...
. Nonetheless, Prawy succeeded, and was considered henceforth as the one who made German language musicals acceptable and popular.


Contributions to opera

From 1955 on, Prawy served as
dramaturg A dramaturge or dramaturg (from Ancient Greek δραματουργός – dramatourgós) is a literary adviser or editor in a theatre, opera, or film company who researches, selects, adapts, edits, and interprets scripts, libretti, texts, and pr ...
at the
Vienna Volksoper The Vienna Volksoper (''Volksoper'' or ''Vienna People's Opera'') is an opera house in Vienna, Austria. It produces three hundred performances of twenty-five German language productions of opera, operetta, musicals, and ballet, during an annual s ...
, and from 1972 as chief-dramaturg at the
Vienna State Opera The Vienna State Opera (, ) is a historic opera house and opera company based in Vienna, Austria. The 1,709-seat Renaissance Revival venue was the first major building on the Vienna Ring Road. It was built from 1861 to 1869 following plans by ...
. Between 1976 and 1982 Prawy was a professor at the Vienna College of Music (''Wiener Musikhochschule'', today
Universität für Musik und darstellende Kunst Wien The University of Music and Performing Arts Vienna (, abbreviated MDW) is an Austrian university established in 1817 located in Vienna. With a student body of over three thousand, it is the largest institution of its kind in Austria, and one of t ...
) and lecturer in the field of theater sciences at the
University of Vienna The University of Vienna (, ) is a public university, public research university in Vienna, Austria. Founded by Rudolf IV, Duke of Austria, Duke Rudolph IV in 1365, it is the oldest university in the German-speaking world and among the largest ...
. He also lectured as a visiting professor at numerous American and Japanese universities. He became widely known and highly regarded because of a television and radio broadcast series produced by the
ORF ORF or Orf may refer to: * Norfolk International Airport, IATA airport code ORF * Observer Research Foundation, an Indian research institute * One Race Films, a film production company founded by Vin Diesel * Open reading frame, a portion of the g ...
, where he introduced his viewers and listeners to the world of opera and operetta with outstanding knowledge and great humor. Prawy maintained close friendships with many prominent singers, composers and musicians, such as
Leonard Bernstein Leonard Bernstein ( ; born Louis Bernstein; August 25, 1918 – October 14, 1990) was an American conductor, composer, pianist, music educator, author, and humanitarian. Considered to be one of the most important conductors of his time, he was th ...
and
Robert Stolz Robert Elisabeth Stolz (25 August 188027 June 1975) was an Austrian songwriter and conductor as well as a composer of operettas and film music.Stanley Sadie Ed. (2002) ''The New Grove Dictionary of Opera'', Oxford University Press Biography ...
. He was awarded numerous awards and honours in Austria and internationally, including honorary citizenship of Vienna and of Miami. Hardly anyone succeeded in picturing opera for his audience as impressively and fervently as he did, and thus Prawy became an institution as the National Opera Guide (''Opernführer der Nation''). In his final years, Prawy was quite frank about his unique, and rather eccentric, method of archiving his enormous collection of theatre programmes, recordings, letters, photographs, personal notes, and similar loose sheets gathered over many decades. Although Prawy lived in a room at the
Hotel Sacher Hotel Sacher is a five-star luxury hotel in Vienna, Austria, facing the Vienna State Opera in the city's central Innere Stadt district. It is famous for the specialty of the house, the Sachertorte, a chocolate cake with apricot filling. There is ...
, he invited journalists into the private apartment he was still keeping: it contained thousands of
plastic shopping bag In use by consumers worldwide since the 1960s, shopping bags made from various kinds of plastic, are variously called plastic shopping bags, carrier bags, or plastic grocery bags. They are sometimes referred to as single-use bags—referring to c ...
s, each of which was carefully labelled so that he could readily access any information he needed. On his 90th birthday in 2001, a special celebration was held for him in the Vienna State Opera. Prawy's death in 2003, of a lung embolism, was regarded as the passing of one of the last witnesses of an old time gone by and greatly mourned by the public.


Publications

* Prawy, Marcel (1970), ''The Vienna Opera''. London:
Weidenfeld & Nicolson Weidenfeld & Nicolson Ltd (established 1949), often shortened to W&N or Weidenfeld, is a British publisher of fiction and reference books. It has been a division of the French-owned Orion Publishing Group since 1991. History George Weidenfeld ...
. * Prawy, Marcel (1982), ''Richard Wagner: Leben und Werk''. Munich: Wilhelm Goldmann Verlag. * Prawy, Marcel (1991), ''Johann Strauss''. Vienna:
Ueberreuter Ueberreuter (full: ) is an Austrian publishing house now based in Berlin, Germany. Founded as ''Verlag Carl Ueberreuter'' in 1946 by Thomas F. Salzer (de), today the company is Austria's biggest publisher of non-fiction literature. Ueberreuter ...
* Prawy, Marcel (2002), ''Marcel Prawy erzählt aus seinem Leben. ...und seine Vision der Oper des 21. Jahrhunderts.'' Vienna: Kremayr & Scheriau


References

* Wagner-Trenkwitz, Christoph; Thomas Trabitsch (2002). ''Marcel Prawy: Glück, das mir verblieb''. Vienna: Christian Brandstätter


External links


Marcel Prawy
at the
aeiou Encyclopedia Austria-Forum is a freely accessible online collection of reference works on Austria in German language, German, with some articles in English language, English, initiated by Graz University of Technology, TU Graz. As of 2022, Austria-Forum has be ...

Jewish Music Institute , A tribute to Marcel Prawy


{{DEFAULTSORT:Prawy, Marcel Jewish dramatists and playwrights Austrian male dramatists and playwrights Austrian critics Opera critics University of Music and Performing Arts Vienna alumni Austrian Jews Jews from Austria-Hungary Writers from Vienna Burials at the Vienna Central Cemetery 1911 births 2003 deaths 20th-century Austrian dramatists and playwrights 20th-century Austrian male writers Commanders Crosses of the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany