Meta Luts (5 September 1905 – 1 July 1958)
was an
Estonia
Estonia, formally the Republic of Estonia, is a country by the Baltic Sea in Northern Europe. It is bordered to the north by the Gulf of Finland across from Finland, to the west by the sea across from Sweden, to the south by Latvia, and t ...
n actress. Known mostly for her appearances on stage, she also performed in radio theatre and appeared in several films. Her career spanned nearly forty years.
Early life and education
Meta Luts was born in the rural municipality of
Riidaja
Riidaja is a village in Tõrva Parish, Valga County, in southern Estonia
Estonia, formally the Republic of Estonia, is a country by the Baltic Sea in Northern Europe. It is bordered to the north by the Gulf of Finland across from Finla ...
in
Valga County
Valga County ( et, Valga maakond or ''Valgamaa'') is a first-level administrative unit and one of 15 counties of Estonia. It comprises the former area of Valga District. The present-day county was created on 1 January 1990. The capital and lar ...
to parents Andres and Juuli Mari Luts (''née'' Gentalen).
She had two older sisters, Lonny and Karin, and a younger brother named Elmar.
Karin would go on to become a successful painter and graphic artist.
Her first cousin was artist . The family moved to
Pärnu
Pärnu () is the fourth largest city in Estonia. Situated in southwest Estonia, Pärnu is located south of the Estonian capital, Tallinn, and west of Estonia's second largest city, Tartu. The city sits off the coast of Pärnu Bay, an inlet o ...
in her early childhood where she attended primary and secondary schools and took dance lessons from Marie Kalbek-Maddi, who worked as a dance instructor for the
Endla Theatre
Endla ( et, Endla teater) is a professional theatre in city of Pärnu, Estonia.
The theatre was opened in 1911. The first performance was "Libahunt" ("Werewolf") by Estonian writer August Kitzberg. The Estonian Declaration of Independence was p ...
. Later, when instructors from the Estonia Theatre (now, the
Estonian National Opera
Estonian National Opera (''Rahvusooper Estonia'') is the national opera company of Estonia. The company is based at the Estonia Theatre in Tallinn. The theatre has had several names throughout its existence. The latest one being "The Estonian Nat ...
) came to Pärnu to offer theatre courses, she studied dance with actor and dancer Robert Rood and was convinced by her father's friend, Estonia Theatre director and theatre pedagogue Karl Jungholz, to become a stage actress.
[
]
Career
Stage
In 1923, Luts began an engagement at Endla Theatre that lasted until 1925, when she joined the Estonia Theatre in Tallinn
Tallinn () is the most populous and capital city of Estonia. Situated on a bay in north Estonia, on the shore of the Gulf of Finland of the Baltic Sea, Tallinn has a population of 437,811 (as of 2022) and administratively lies in the Harju '' ...
. Luts left the Estonia Theatre in 1949 to begin an engagement at the Tallinn State Drama Theatre (now, the Estonian Drama Theatre
The Estonian Drama Theatre ( et, Eesti Draamateater) is a theatre in Tallinn, Estonia. It has the role of a national theatre for Estonia. The Estonia Theatre is located next door.
History
The building that houses the Estonian Drama Theatre was o ...
), where she appeared as an actress until her death in 1958. During her prolific stage career, she appeared in productions in works by such varied international playwrights and authors as: William Shakespeare
William Shakespeare ( 26 April 1564 – 23 April 1616) was an English playwright, poet and actor. He is widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world's pre-eminent dramatist. He is often called England's natio ...
, Henrik Ibsen
Henrik Johan Ibsen (; ; 20 March 1828 – 23 May 1906) was a Norwegian playwright and theatre director. As one of the founders of modernism in theatre, Ibsen is often referred to as "the father of realism" and one of the most influential pla ...
, Friedrich Schiller
Johann Christoph Friedrich von Schiller (, short: ; 10 November 17599 May 1805) was a German playwright, poet, and philosopher. During the last seventeen years of his life (1788–1805), Schiller developed a productive, if complicated, friends ...
, Adolphe Adam
Adolphe Charles Adam (; 24 July 1803 – 3 May 1856) was a French composer, teacher and music critic. A prolific composer for the theatre, he is best known today for his ballets ''Giselle'' (1841) and '' Le corsaire'' (1856), his operas ''Le pos ...
, Maxim Gorky
Alexei Maximovich Peshkov (russian: link=no, Алексе́й Макси́мович Пешко́в; – 18 June 1936), popularly known as Maxim Gorky (russian: Макси́м Го́рький, link=no), was a Russian writer and social ...
, Pierre Beaumarchais
Pierre-Augustin Caron de Beaumarchais (; 24 January 1732 – 18 May 1799) was a French polymath. At various times in his life, he was a watchmaker, inventor, playwright, musician, diplomat, spy, publisher, horticulturist, arms dealer, satiris ...
, Aleksis Kivi
Aleksis Kivi (; born Alexis Stenvall; 10 October 1834 – 31 December 1872) was a Finnish author who wrote the first significant novel in the Finnish language, '' Seitsemän veljestä'' ("Seven Brothers") in 1870. He is also known for his 1864 ...
, Franz Grillparzer
Franz Seraphicus Grillparzer (15 January 1791 – 21 January 1872) was an Austrian writer who was considered to be the leading Austrian dramatist of the 19th century. His plays were and are frequently performed at the famous Burgtheater in Vien ...
, Anton Chekhov
Anton Pavlovich Chekhov (; 29 January 1860Old Style date 17 January. – 15 July 1904Old Style date 2 July.) was a Russian playwright and short-story writer who is considered to be one of the greatest writers of all time. His career a ...
, Konstantin Trenyov
Konstantin Andreyevich Trenyov (russian: Константи́н Андре́евич Тренёв, – May 19, 1945) was a Soviet Russian writer and playwright, USSR State Prize laureate (1941), best known for his Russian Civil War history drama ...
, and George Bernard Shaw
George Bernard Shaw (26 July 1856 – 2 November 1950), known at his insistence simply as Bernard Shaw, was an Irish playwright, critic, polemicist and political activist. His influence on Western theatre, culture and politics extended from ...
. Luts also appeared in a number of roles in productions of works by Estonian authors and playwrights, including those of: Hugo Raudsepp
Hugo Raudsepp (10 July 1883 – 15 September 1952) was an influential and prolific Estonian playwright and politician. Cody, Sprinchorn 2007, p. 428. In 1951 he was deported to the Irkutsk region by the Soviet authorities, where he died. Raun 20 ...
, August Kitzberg
August Kitzberg ( in Laatre Parish, Governorate of Livonia, Russian Empire – 10 October 1927 in Tartu) was an Estonian writer.
Life
Until 1863, August Kitzberg was known as August Kits. He grew up in Niitsaadu farmstead in Penuja village, Abj ...
, Hella Wuolijoki
Hella Wuolijoki (née Ella Marie Murrik; 22 July 1886 – 2 February 1954), also known by the pen name Juhani Tervapää, was an Estonian-born Finnish writer known for her ''Niskavuori'' series.Wuolijoki, Hella. Eesti Entsüklopeedia 10. Estonian ...
, A. H. Tammsaare
Anton Hansen (18 (O.S.)/30 January 1878 – 1 March 1940), better known by his pseudonym A. H. Tammsaare and its variants, was an Estonian writer whose pentalogy ''Truth and Justice'' (''Tõde ja õigus''; 1926–1933) is considered one of ...
, and August Jakobson.[
]
Film
In 1947, Meta Luts was cast in the role of Mrs. Emilie Värihein in the Herbert Rappaport
Herbert Rappaport (1908–1983), known in the Soviet Union as Gerbert Moritsevich Rappaport, was an Austrian-Soviet screenwriter and film director.
Rappaport was born in 1908 in Vienna, Austria-Hungary, to Jewish parents from Lemberg (now Lv ...
-directed Lenfilm
Lenfilm (russian: link=no, Ленфильм) is a Russian production company with its own film studio located in Saint Petersburg (the city was called Leningrad from 1924 to 1991, thus the name). It is a corporation with its stakes shared betwe ...
drama ''Elu tsitadellis''. Luts had performed the role on stage the year previously. The film was
based on the 1946 play of the same name by Estonian author and communist politician August Jakobson and was the first post-World War II
World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the World War II by country, vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great power ...
Estonian feature film following the annexation of Estonia into the Soviet Union
The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, ...
.
The plot largely revolves around the arrival of the Soviets following the German occupation of Estonia in 1944 and justice being meted out to Estonians who had collaborated with German occupying forces. The film ends with jubilant Estonians celebrating their "liberation" and inclusion into the Soviet Union; accepting the communist ideology
Communism (from Latin la, communis, lit=common, universal, label=none) is a far-left sociopolitical, philosophical, and economic ideology and current within the socialist movement whose goal is the establishment of a communist society, a so ...
. The film and was awarded the Stalin Prize. Other prominent film roles include that of Paula in the 1956 Viktor Nevežin-directed historical drama ''Tagahoovis'', based on the 1933 story of the same name by author and playwright Oskar Luts
Oskar Luts ( – 23 March 1953) was an Estonian writer and playwright.
Biography
Oskar Luts was born into a middle-class family in Järvepera, central Estonia, at that time in the governorate of Livonia (Russian Empire). His younger brother was ...
(no relation), for Tallinna Kinostuudio (now, Tallinnfilm
Tallinnfilm is the oldest surviving film studio in Estonia. It was founded as Estonian Culture Film in 1931, and was nationalized in 1940 after Estonia was forced into the Soviet Union. During the first year of Soviet Occupation (1940–1941) ' ...
); and the role of Heli's grandmother in the 1957 Aleksandr Mandrõkin-directed drama ''Pöördel''.
Death
Meta Luts died in Tallinn at age 52. She had never married or had children. She was buried at Metsakalmistu
Metsakalmistu (meaning ''Forest Cemetery'') is a cemetery in the Pirita district of Tallinn.
Metsakalmistu was originally planned to be a public medieval cemetery. Eduard Vilde was the first to be buried in 1933. The original area of the cemet ...
in Tallinn.
Acknowledgements
*Merited Artist of the Estonian SSR
The Estonian SSR,, russian: Эстонская ССР officially the Estonian Soviet Socialist Republic,, russian: Эстонская Советская Социалистическая Республика was an National delimitation in ...
(1955)[
]
References
External links
*
{{DEFAULTSORT:Luts, Meta
1905 births
1958 deaths
Estonian stage actresses
Estonian film actresses
People from Tõrva Parish
Burials at Metsakalmistu
20th-century Estonian actresses