Aleksander Moisiu

Aleksander Moisiu (sometimes fore-mentioned Alessandro or Alexandre, and occasionally designated under the Mildewed patronym), was a large Albanian actor, born the April 2nd 1879 with Trieste (Italy) and dead the March 22nd 1935 with Vienna (Austria).

An italo-Albanian childhood

Its family is originating in Durrës (Albania), but division her time between Albania and the Italy. He even is born in Trieste, the last of five children. His/her father is a commercial rich person of oil and of grain, his/her mother is resulting from a cultivated family, with Italian half, Albanian half. Bathing in this double culture, Aleksander is expressed in the two languages and learns German only with adolescence when it makes secondary studies with Graz.

The theater, all the theater

At the 19 years age, it settles with Vienna with his mother and two sisters. It is noticed there by the dramatic critic Paul Schlenther and the large Austrian actor Josef Kainz which encourages it and gives him courses. Thus it obtains a first small role with the Burgtheater in 1898. All goes rather quickly then, and the young man is engaged with the NDT (Neues Deutsches Theater) of Prague in 1901.

In 1904 it enters to new the German Théâtre of Berlin. It joined the troop of max Reinhardt from which it becomes protected and accompanies the company at the time of its round with Saint-Pétersbourg in 1911. Over there its interpretation of Oedipus is greeted by the Russian dramatic critic Anatoliy Lunacharsky, and from now on he will be requested a little everywhere in Europe and America. The day before the First World War it is without question the largest actor of German language.

When the conflict bursts, it is mobilized in aviation. Captive fact in France, it is released a few months later thanks to an prisoner exchange. He works some time in Switzerland before joining max Reinhardt in Germany.

The actor was equipped - seem-T-it - with an exceptional voice and a remarkable capacity to express the emotions: it particularly is appreciated when he dies in scene. Although German is not his native tongue, it has a perfect command of it and its Hochdeutsch constitutes a reference.

Its interpretations cover all the spectrum of the European dramatic repertory, since the ancient Greek tragedy to the modern authors. In the role of Hamlet, it competes with the British actor John Gielgud. Among its greater successes its incarnation of Fedja in the Living corpse appears of Tolstoï, than he interprets 1.400 times and than will see nearly 1,5 million people in the world. The main role also returns to him in DER weiße Heiland of Gerhart Hauptmann, the Awakening of spring of Frank Wedekind or Jedermann of Hugo von Hofmannsthal which is played for the first time in 1920 at the time of the inaugural spectacle of the Festival of Salzburg, that Moisiu has contributed itself to create with max Reinhardt and the author.

The cinema, too

Aleksander Moisiu makes to its beginnings with the cinema in 1913 in a secondary role of the Student of Prague of Paul Wegener, then is seen entrusting the main role in about fifteen films, mainly dumb. The majority are literary adaptations (Beaumarchais, Pouchkine, Goethe, Dumas), and two of them ( Kean and Die Königsloge ) put in scene the character of Kean, another large European actor. The latter film, sound, is made to Hollywood under the title The Royal Box (1929), but it is a failure. In 1933 Moisiu makes a triumphal round in Italy and makes its last film, Lorenzino de Medici (1934).

Decline

From the Années 1920 it has more success in Russia, France and Italy that in Germany where engagements are made rarer, even if one, because it celebrates it everywhere joined the row of the stars, a little with the manner of a Caruso or of a Valentino.

But little by little its style seems to belong to the past, in particular with the rise of the expressionnism and the irruption of the shapes of theater more politicized like those of Brecht or Piscator.

In 1934, little before its death, Moisiu requires Albanian nationality and receives an answer favorable… on the condition of becoming official Acteur at the court of Zog Ier. A telegram of Rome also offers an Italian passport to him. There exists a controversy as for the exit of the dilemma, apparently solved by the disappearance of the applicant.

Indeed, reached pneumonia, he dies in Vienna on March 22nd, 1935 and is incinerated there. He is finally buried with Morcote, a small village at the edge of the Lac of Lugano.

Aleksander Moisiu was married twice. His first Maria wife, of origin Viennese, created a dramatic course in Berlin. In 1919 it married in second weddings the actress Johanna Terwin. He is moreover the great-grandfather of the German actor Gedeon Burkhard.

Albanian?

Today still Albania celebrates Aleksander Moisiu like the largest actor of the country. The School of dramatic art of Tirana and the theater of Durrës bear its name. To Durrës, the Aleksander-Moisiu Foundation is devoted to the valorization of its heritage. The medal d'" Artist of the People " from the Popular republic of Albania on a purely posthumous basis in 1962 was decreed to him. In 1995 the sixtieth birthday of its death was celebrated by the one Year introduction of the theater.

However Aleksander Moisiu is not turned over to Albania beyond its youths, and some rather consider it as an Italian, or Austrian, even Serbe. According to the American academic Mary Karen Dahl, the totalitarian mode of Enver Hoxha would have known to divert with its profit the notoriety of this large European actor.

Catalog of films

1913 : Das Schwarze Los ; Die Augen of Ole Held up ; the Student of Prague ( Der Student von Prag )
1915: Kulissenzauber ; Center einziger Sohn
1918: Pique Rams ; DER Boxing ring DER drei Wünsche
1919: Erborgtes Glück ; Der Junge Goethe ; Zwischen Tod und Leben
1920: Barbers Hochzeit ; Die Nacht der Königin Isabeau
1921: Kean
1929 : Die Königsloge / Royal The Box
1934: Lorenzino de Medici

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