2. The Burgtheater Crisis

Nationale Blätter 1889, Volume II, 2

Whenever there is an important vacancy to be filled in Austria, both the relevant circles and the otherwise all-wise gentlemen of Viennese journalism are at a loss. They always claim that there is no suitable person with the knowledge and skills to fill the position in question. We are currently experiencing this again in the management crisis at the Burgtheater. We would have to fear for the decline of German science and art if we were really as poor in outstanding personalities as a local critic recently wants us to believe when he says: "And there is probably no one who unites the necessary qualities, because if there were one, all eyes would have long since rested on him. There is no way we will get the ideal of a Burgtheater director. We will have to lower our standards and make do with a halfway suitable personality instead of a completely suitable one (Edm. Wengraf in the "Wiener Allgemeine Zeitung" of January 12 of this year [1890]." These words are simply ridiculous; they are only surpassed in senselessness by what Ludwig Speidel wrote in the last Sunday feature of the "Neue Freie Presse", which culminated in the following: "We have no man in the whole of Austria and Germany, apart from Baron Berger, who can now run the Burgtheater. Even if this omission by Speidel borders on the comical and should therefore cause only laughter in anyone with insight, we cannot consider it to be entirely harmless. For Speidel's influence on the leading circles of the Burgtheater is great, and his word is listened to. We do not know how this critic gained such influence. It sounds downright heretical to local ears, but it has to be said: Speidel's reputation is largely made. He writes in a way that appeals to a certain section of the Viennese public, witty, witty, but he is without any thoroughness; he has neither artistic principles nor a purified, consolidated taste. Ludwig Speidel's style is admired. Basically, however, it is only a somewhat better newspaper style, which often twists and turns the truth in order to conclude a paragraph with a witty turn of phrase; this is then pleasing, and one does not ask whether what is claimed is true... We now fear that, as so often, this man's voice will be heard this time too. But this time it would be the most dangerous. For our Burgtheater is indeed facing a great danger. Above all, it is in danger of falling completely flat with the comedy. What we have seen in this direction recently, what tastes have been expressed in it, has only recently been hinted at in these papers. It was mostly quite worthless 'theatricality', but it was excellently acted. The art of acting in our Burgtheater does indeed seem to want to emancipate itself completely from dramatic art. The fact that the late Förster was much more important as a director than as a dramaturge contributed to this. This is a pointer to what should be considered above all else when choosing a future director. It will now be a question of a director who has enough insight and understanding to find the truly valuable, the lasting from the dramatic literature of the present, and who has what is called an "aesthetic conscience", which forbids him to allow mere play manufacturers such as Schönthan, Herzl, Fulda, Blumenthal to enter the Burgtheater. We can never expect the same from men like v. Werther and Savits. They would certainly be excellent directors, but they are least likely to be free from the mistake of performing bad dramas for the sake of grateful roles.

We have seen how the above error took deepest root precisely at the time when a stage veteran like Sonnenthal was in charge of the Burgtheater. For all his importance as an actor and director, Sonnenthal lacked any understanding of dramatic art. We fear the same from v. Werther and Savits. The names Spielhagen, Paul Heyse and Hans Hopfen were also mentioned. The first two would hardly accept an appointment; Hans Hopfen, however, is far too superficial in his literary work for the Burgtheater to expect anything from him. It has also been rightly remarked that these latter three personalities have looked around far too little in the dramatic arts to be able to cope with the second task that falls to the future Burgtheater director: creating order in the staff. Our really good people have grown old and will soon need to be replaced. With the exception of Miss Reinhold, our younger ones are almost completely insignificant. They simply have to be tidied up. The future director will have to have the energy to say to some young actors: "I can't use you; we have to make room for something better."

So what is the point if Speidel can only recommend his protégé, Baron Berger, to these urgent needs of the Viennese court theater: he knows the conditions at the Burgtheater, he was able to acquire a sense for the specifics of "Viennese" acting during his time as secretary. That is petty. But we need a man with an eye for the big picture, with full aesthetic and dramaturgical insight. Baron Berger is not that. In his university lectures here he has shown that he has the wrong idea of the position of dramatic art in relation to drama; he has shown that he is capable of giving lectures in a feuilleton style and in dazzling speech, but not that he has appropriated the German view of art.

But what Ludwig Speidel does not seem to know, because he only passes over his name in passing, is that we actually have a good dramaturgical writer who has shown in recent years with every new publication that he has grown, and that is now Heinrich Bulthaupt. Equipped with a fine understanding of the inner technique and aesthetics of drama, few can compete with him when it comes to a penetrating understanding of the art of acting. When Ludwig Speidel accuses him of showing little understanding of the peculiarities of the Burgtheater's acting art, we have a number of things to say about this. Firstly, this art has certain great merits to which a man like Bulthaupt in particular cannot close his mind; secondly, however, it has faults, faults which Bulthaupt can see, but not Ludwig Speidel, because he helped to bring them up. And finally, there is the fact that Bulthaupt's dramatic insight has grown so much since that publication on the Munich Gesamtgastspiel, on which Speidel bases his opinion, that his present ability must no longer be judged by that work, but by his last, quite extraordinary publications on the "Dramaturgy of Opera" and the dramaturgy of our classics.

"Yes, but do we really have to go abroad; can't we find a suitable man in Vienna?" we hear the supporters of a certain literary mutual insurance company exclaim. Without going any further into the distastefulness of this speech, we would like to remark that we should be shown the man in Vienna who fulfills the above conditions. Various names are mentioned: Friedrich Uhl at first, then more recently even Ganghofer, Schwarzkopf, Hevesi and Müller-Guttenbrunn. We don't need to talk any further about Ganghofer, Schwarzkopf and Hevesi. As far as Uhl is concerned, we must say that his reviews in the "Wiener Zeitung" do indeed appear to us at the moment to be the best Viennese theater criticism; but the others are all on such a level that they cannot be seriously reckoned with at all. However, this does not mean that someone is predestined to be the director of the Burgtheater. that he possesses a refined and purified judgment in the face of boundless ignorance and tastelessness. As for Müller-Guttenbrunn, we would have been pleased to see him at the head of the Deutsches Volkstheater at the time: now that he is praising the bad play "Die Hochzeit von Valeni" with morality and indignation at the mediocrity of that theater's performances in his mouth, we have come back from it. For the Burgtheater, however, its power seems to us altogether too small.

We do not indulge in the hope that the crisis in the Burgtheater will be solved in the sense indicated above; but then we also know that the choice will not be a bad one for lack of a suitable personality for the direction of the Burgtheater, but for lack of those personalities who would be suitable for seeking it.