Ludwig Barnay

* 11.02.1842 in Pest (Hungary); ✝ 01.02.1924 in Hannover

Actor, Theatre Director, Shakespeare Stage-Adaptor

Biography

Having given up training to be an architect, Barnay began his theatrical career as one of a troupe of travelling players, enjoying but modest success until, in 1864, he arrived in Mainz, where Heinrich Laube engaged his services for a guest appearance in Vienna. Specializing in heroic roles, he became a member of the Meiningen Court Theatre and went on numerous theatrical tours in Europe and America. In 1871 he helped to establish the Society of German Stage Workers. He was among the founders of the German Theatre in Berlin, in 1883, but left it in 1884 in order to resume his career as an itinerant guest star. Between 1887 and 1894 he was the artistic director of the Berlin Theatre, and in 1906 he assumed the direction of the Court Theatre in Hanover.

In addition to wide ranging theatrical activities – among them the innumerable guest appearances which earned him his international fame – he also made a name for himself with adaptations of Shakespeare plays for the stage.

Shakespeare Roles: Of the 455 theatrical roles which Barnay lists in his autobiography, so many were written by Shakespeare that it has been decided to mention here only those which he essayed on numerous occasions.

• Petruchio (The Taming of the Shrew)
• Hamlet (Hamlet)
• Antonius (Julius Caesar)
• Lear (King Lear)
• Macbeth (Macbeth)
• Othello (Othello)
• Richard III (Richard III)
• Mercutio (Romeo and Juliet)
• Benedict (Much Ado About Nothing)
• Leontes (The Winter's Tale)

Literature

Primary Literature

• Erinnerungen. Berlin, 1903.
• Über Theater und anderes. Berlin, 1913.

Secondary Literature

• Berthold, Margot: „Barnay, Ludwig“. In: Neue Deutsche Biographie, 1 (1953). P. 594. Url: www.deutsche-biographie.de/pnd118652575.html.
• Gellert, Georg: Ludwig Barnay: Ein Künstlerleben. Berlin, 1890.

Album pages with this person

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