High Society Amdrams: Vienna 1869.

Often, in the past, I've found that some wonderful photographic records have survived of Amateur Theatricals... when they have been the sport, especially, of the aristocracy or the military. 

Such as this 1864 York set from Garrison playacting ... which I was able to tie up with a newspaper report of the occasion

https://kurtofgerolstein.blogspot.com/2021/09/corporal-shorter-short-strut-and-fret.html

Or this, from Algeria in 1865 

https://kurtofgerolstein.blogspot.com/2022/09/amateur-aristocratic-dramatics-algeria.html

Well, I've just happed on the loftiest lot of all. Vienna, 1869. It really was a lucky strike, because it was just a matter of strolling through an ebay shop (the 20th or 30th today) until something caught my eye. Lots of aristo photos. Normal. There are always lots of aristopix. Apparently folk bought them. But one of them was labelled 'Baron de Bourgoing Treumann'. Treumann? In 1869 there was only one Treumann in Vienna for me ... the great Karl Treumann of the Theater am Franz Josef-Kai. I looked at the photo ... Well, unless we have a very bent Baron on our hands, that fat lady is none other than he!

So the Baron did Amdrams. But wait, there's a whole bunch of photos labelled and unlabelled, all evidently from the same photo session. 

Anna Strachwitz

Anna Walkenstein

Gräfin Salbe

Marquis de Vauquelas

Prince de Polignac

Prinzessin Scylla

Prinzessin Furstenberg

Alice Flarnoncourt

Seems as if they all attended the same 'do', and that a society photographer was brought in to record the affair ..

So I looked, and I found this ...

My German is to put it politely ropey. It was forbidden in our childhood home, from which everything German and Austrian was carefully excluded. But I can tell that we have a 'Benefit' performance at the Schwarzenburg's Palace at which the lofty Lustpielers got to do their stuff. Either playing or parading.

The opened with a vaudeville in which Vauquelas was featured, followed up by a pantomime -- evidently the source of the unlabelled Pierrot picture above. I see Mrs Salve and Furstenberg had 'thinkiing' parts. The third piece was a vehicle for the Baron, with Mmes Furstenberg and Strachwitz and the Marquis in suport. 

A Gräfin with a nice voice sang Gounod, Schumann and Mozart, to gloved applause, and proceedings ended with the Baron and Treumann performing a German version of Fleur de ligne et Perle d'Alsace (music: Strebinger) in which Bourgoing played a Regimentstambour and Treumann ... an old market woman. Well, none of the Gräfins and Prinzessins wouls have wanted to play old and ugly and low comic!  And that, of course, is the photo above.

So, I think I can safely say that this is the occasion on which were taken the set of photos for sale from Bits of Our Past, in dear old Stockport ...