Grete Wiesenthal (9 December 1885 – 22 June 1970) was an Austrian dancer, actor,

choreographer Choreography is the art or practice of designing sequences of movements of physical bodies (or their depictions) in which motion or form or both are specified. ''Choreography'' may also refer to the design itself. A choreographer is one who cr ...

, and dance teacher. She transformed the

Viennese Waltz Viennese waltz (german: Wiener Walzer) is a genre of ballroom dance. At least four different meanings are recognized. In the historically first sense, the name may refer to several versions of the waltz, including the earliest waltzes done in b ...

from a staple of the

ballroom A ballroom or ballhall is a large room inside a building, the primary purpose of which is holding large formal parties called balls. Traditionally, most balls were held in private residences; many mansions and palaces, especially historic man ...

into a wildly

ecstatic dance Ecstatic dance is a form of dance in which the dancers, sometimes without the need to follow specific steps, abandon themselves to the rhythm and move freely as the music takes them, leading to trance and a feeling of ecstasy. The effects of ecs ...

. She was trained at the

Vienna Court Opera The Vienna State Opera (, ) is an 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 August Si ...

, but left to develop her own more expressive approach, creating

ballet Ballet () is a type of performance dance that originated during the Italian Renaissance in the fifteenth century and later developed into a concert dance form in France and Russia. It has since become a widespread and highly technical form of ...

s to music by

Franz Schreker Franz Schreker (originally ''Schrecker''; 23 March 1878 – 21 March 1934) was an Austrian composer, conductor, teacher and administrator. Primarily a composer of operas, Schreker developed a style characterized by aesthetic plurality (a mixture ...

Clemens von Franckenstein Clemens Erwein Heinrich Karl Bonaventura Freiherr von und zu Franckenstein (14 July 1875 – 19 August 1942) was a German opera composer, studying in Vienna, Austria, and later in Munich, Germany, with Ludwig Thuille and at the Hoch Conservatory ...

, and Franz Salmhofer, as well as dancing in her own style to the waltzes of

Johann Strauss II Johann Baptist Strauss II (25 October 1825 – 3 June 1899), also known as Johann Strauss Jr., the Younger or the Son (german: links=no, Sohn), was an Austrian composer of light music, particularly dance music and operettas. He composed ov ...

. She is considered a leading figure in

modern dance Modern dance is a broad genre of western concert or theatrical dance which included dance styles such as ballet, folk, ethnic, religious, and social dancing; and primarily arose out of Europe and the United States in the late 19th and early 20th ...

in Austria.

Early life

Grete Wiesenthal was born in Vienna on 9 December 1885, daughter of the painter Franz Wiesenthal and his wife Rosa (née Ratkovsky). She had five sisters and a brother. At the age of ten she joined the ballet school of the Court Opera in Vienna, as did her sister Elsa, and from 1901 to 1907 she worked as a dancer there. In 1907, the conductor and composer

Gustav Mahler Gustav Mahler (; 7 July 1860 – 18 May 1911) was an Austro-Bohemian Romantic composer, and one of the leading conductors of his generation. As a composer he acted as a bridge between the 19th-century Austro-German tradition and the modernism ...

gave her the leading role of Fenella in ''

La Muette de Portici ''La muette de Portici'' (''The Mute Girl of Portici'', or ''The Dumb Girl of Portici''), also called ''Masaniello'' () in some versions, is an opera in five acts by Daniel Auber, with a libretto by Germain Delavigne, revised by Eugène Scribe. ...

'', overriding the ballet master, Joseph Hassreiter; the resulting scandal led Mahler to resign.

Career

Wiesenthal felt there was no artistry in the Court Opera, and developed her own approach to the

Strauss Strauss, Strauß or Straus is a common Germanic surname. Outside Germany and Austria ''Strauß'' is always spelled ''Strauss'' (the letter " ß" is not used in the German-speaking part of Switzerland). In classical music, "Strauss" usually ref ...

and the waltzes of Chopin, linked to the

Vienna Secession The Vienna Secession (german: Wiener Secession; also known as ''the Union of Austrian Artists'', or ''Vereinigung Bildender Künstler Österreichs'') is an art movement, closely related to Art Nouveau, that was formed in 1897 by a group of Austri ...

group of artists and innovators. Her dramatic and

ecstatic Ecstasy () is a subjective experience of total involvement of the subject, with an object of their awareness. In classical Greek literature, it refers to removal of the mind or body "from its normal place of function." Total involvement with ...

choreography made her a leading figure in Austrian dance. Meryl Cates of ''

The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...

'' characterised her approach as "swirling, euphoric movement and suspended arches of the body". The Mahler Foundation described the effect of her choreography as "unbound hair and swinging dresses". She called her approach "spherical dance", involving turning and extending the torso, arms, and legs on a horizontal axis, unlike the more vertical rotations of her contemporaries

Isadora Duncan Angela Isadora Duncan (May 26, 1877 or May 27, 1878 – September 14, 1927) was an American dancer and choreographer, who was a pioneer of modern contemporary dance, who performed to great acclaim throughout Europe and the US. Born and raised in ...

and Ruth St Denis, who were also admired at that time in Vienna. Spinning was a core element in her dance. The cultural historian Alys X. George said that this transformation of the Viennese waltz from ballroom standard to an outdoor avant-garde art form electrified the city. In 1908, Wiesenthal led her sisters Berta and Elsa at Vienna's , the highlight being her "Danube waltzes" () solo performed to

's " On the Beautiful Blue Danube". They moved to Berlin, working there until 1910 at the Deutsches Theater. They toured both in Germany and internationally, taking their dance to Munich (Artist's Theatre, 1909) London (

Hippodrome The hippodrome ( el, ἱππόδρομος) was an ancient Greek stadium for horse racing and chariot racing. The name is derived from the Greek words ''hippos'' (ἵππος; "horse") and ''dromos'' (δρόμος; "course"). The term is used i ...

1909), Paris (

Théâtre du Vaudeville The Théâtre du Vaudeville was a theatre company in Paris. It opened on 12 January 1792 on rue de Chartres. Its directors, Piis and Barré, mainly put on "petites pièces mêlées de couplets sur des airs connus", including vaudevilles. Af ...

), and New York (1912, Winter Theater) where they were warmly received. She choreographed and appeared in the title role of the 1910 pantomime play ''Sumurun'' at the Berlin Kammerspiel theatre, directed by

Max Reinhardt Max Reinhardt (; born Maximilian Goldmann; 9 September 1873 – 30 October 1943) was an Austrian-born Theatre director, theatre and film director, theater manager, intendant, and theatrical producer. With his innovative stage productions, he i ...

with script by ; a more elaborate production travelled to London in 1911 and New York in 1912. Critics repeatedly commented on her delicacy of movement, charm, and femininity. However the leading ballerina , who danced Wiesenthal's works in the late 20th century, noted that the tiny movements were less well-suited to the large stage of the

Vienna State Opera The Vienna State Opera (, ) is an 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 August S ...

. In 1912–1914, she was the leading dancer in the three "Grete Wiesenthal Series" films, ''Kadra Sâfa'', ''Erlkönigs Tochter'', and ''Die goldne Fliege''. After a pause in her career during the First World War, she opened her own school of dance in 1919. In 1927, she took the leading role in her own ballet ''Der Taugenichts in Wien'' ("The Ne'er-Do-Well in Vienna") at the Vienna State Opera. She continued to give dance performances in Vienna and on tour. Her performances on her return to New York in 1933 however appeared dated to critics. In 1934, she became a professor at the Academy for Music and the Performing Arts in Vienna, and in 1945 she became director of artistic dance there. File:Grete Wiesenthal by Moritz Nähr.jpg, Wiesenthal dancing to

Beethoven Ludwig van Beethoven (baptised 17 December 177026 March 1827) was a German composer and pianist. Beethoven remains one of the most admired composers in the history of Western music; his works rank amongst the most performed of the classical ...

Piano concerto in G major Maurice Ravel's Piano Concerto in G major, was composed between 1929 and 1931. The concerto is in three movements, with a total playing time of a little over 20 minutes. Ravel said that in this piece he was not aiming to be profound but to enterta ...

, by Moritz Nähr, 1906/8 File:Grete Wiesenthal (Donauwalzer) LOC agc.7a09891 (cropped).jpg, Wiesenthal's interpretation of Strauss's Danube waltzes, 1908, by

Arnold Genthe Arnold Genthe (8 January 1869 – 9 August 1942) was a German-American photographer, best known for his photographs of San Francisco's Chinatown, the 1906 San Francisco earthquake, and his portraits of noted people, from politicians and socialite ...

File:LeoRauthGreteWiesenthal.JPG, Wiesenthal dancing

Frühlingsstimmen "", Op. 410 ("Spring's Voices," or commonly "Voices of Spring"; sometimes sung in Italian as "Voci di primavera") is an orchestral waltz, with optional solo soprano voice, written in 1882 by Johann Strauss II. History Strauss dedicated the wor ...

. Hand-coloured illustration by , 1910 File:Hugo Erfurth - Die Tänzerin Grete Wiesenthal, 1928.jpg, The dancer, by

Hugo Erfurth Hugo Erfurth (14 October 1874 – 14 February 1948) was a German photographer known for his portraits of celebrities and cultural figures of the early twentieth century. Life Early years Erfurth was born in Halle (Saale), in what was then t ...

, 1928

Family life and legacy

Wiesenthal married Erwin Lang in June 1910, divorcing in 1923. She married the Swedish doctor Nils Silfverskjöld that same year, divorcing in 1927. She had one son, Martin. In 1938, she helped Jewish friends, including the dancer Lily Calderon-Spitz, travel to Britain to escape the Nazi persecution. She is buried in the Central Cemetery in Vienna. She is revered in Austria as a pioneer of

, where her choreography saw a late 20th century renaissance. In 2020, writing on ''Tanz.at'', Gunhild Oberzaucher-Schüller described her dance as "ever present". In 1981, a street in Vienna's

Favoriten Favoriten (; Central Bavarian: ''Favoritn''), the 10th district of Vienna, Austria (german: 10. Bezirk, Favoriten), is located south of the central districts. It is south of Innere Stadt, Wieden and Margareten. Favoriten is a heavily populat ...

district was named Wiesenthalgasse after her.

Works created

Ballet

Die Biene 1917 by Clemens von Franckenstein

* 1908: '' Der Geburtstag der Infantin'' ("The Birthday of the Infanta" by

Oscar Wilde Oscar Fingal O'Flahertie Wills Wilde (16 October 185430 November 1900) was an Irish poet and playwright. After writing in different forms throughout the 1880s, he became one of the most popular playwrights in London in the early 1890s. He is ...

; Music by

) * 1916: ''Die Biene'' ("The Bee"; Music by

) * 1930: ''Der Taugenichts in Wien'' ("The Ne'er-do-well in Vienna"; Music by Franz Salmhofer)

Books

* 1919: ''Der Aufstieg'' ("The Climb", Autobiography) * 1951: ''Iffi: Roman einer Tänzerin'' ("Iffi: A Dancer's Novel")

Filmography

* 1913: ''Das fremde Mädchen'' ("The Foreign Girl") * 1914: ''Die goldene Fliege'' ("The Golden Fly") * 1914: ''Erlkönigs Tochter'' ("Erlkönig's Daughter") * 1914: ''Kadra Sâfa'' ("Sheikh Kadra Sâfa") * 1919: ''Der Traum des Künstlers'' ("The Artist's Dream")

References

Sources

* Amort, Andrea: "Free Dance in Interwar Vienna" In: ''Interwar Vienna. Culture between Tradition and Modernity''. Eds. Deborah Holmes and Lisa Silverman. New York, Camden House, 2009, pp. 117–142. * and : ''Mundart der Wiener Moderne. Der Tanz der Grete Wiesenthal.'' Kieser, Munich, 2009. * Fiedler, Leonhard M.; Lang, Martin. ''Grete Wiesenthal: die Schönheit der Sprache des Körpers im Tanz''. Residenz Verlag, Salzburg and Vienna, 1985. * Huber-Wiesenthal, Rudolf: ''Die Schwestern Wiesenthal''. 1934. * Kolb, Alexandra: ''Performing Femininity. Dance and Literature in German Modernism''. Oxford: Peter Lang 2009. * Prenner, Ingeborg: ''Grete Wiesenthal. Die Begründerin eines neuen Tanzstils.'' PhD thesis, Vienna, 1950. * Witzmann, R. (ed.) ''Die neue Körpersprache, G. Wiesenthal und ihr Tanz, 18 May 1985–23 February 1986'', Exhibition Catalogue, Historical Museum, Vienna, 1985.

External links

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AEIOU

Wiesenthal-Projektgruppe
{{DEFAULTSORT:Wiesenthal, Grete Austrian ballerinas 1885 births 1970 deaths Dancers from Vienna Austrian female dancers 20th-century Austrian ballet dancers