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The Week in Germany: Culture February 22, 2008 Ira Aldridge: An African American Star on the European Stage in the 19th Century As Leroy Hopkins explained in his most recent guest contribution for The Week in Germany, African American intellectuals and activists from Frederick Douglass to WEB DuBois were attracted to German culture for a variety of reasons in the 19th century. They admired the classical traditions of Goethe and Schiller and sought allies among the revolutionaries of 1848 in the struggle against slavery and discrimination. This week, Hopkins examines the relationship between African American Artists and Germany with a look at the career of America’s first black theater star in Germany, Ira Aldridge. By Leroy Hopkins, Jr
African-American entertainers have performed before appreciative audiences in German concert halls and theaters for at least 150 years. The first African-American entertainer to achieve fame in the German-speaking world was undoubtedly Ira Aldridge (1807-1867). A native New Yorker, Aldridge garnered extraordinary celebrity and honors in Great Britain and on the continent performing not only in what Bernth Lindfors terms “African and West Indian melodramas” but also a wide range of Shakespearean roles.. In many ways, Aldridge was a typical member of the free African communities which began coalescing after the Revolutionary War in Northern states where slavery had still not been outlawed. Slavery in New York State, for instance, did not end until 1827. Aldridge received a basic education in New York City’s African Free School. Similar schools could be found in many free African enclaves and were managed by newly independent African churches whose members recognized the importance of education to the survival of their communities. However, instead of pursing one of the careers that underpinned the economic infrastructure of Antebellum African-American communities (e.g. barber, chimney sweep, caterer, or craftsman), Aldridge was drawn to the theater and debuted as a teenager in New York’s African Grove as Rollo in Richard Brinley Sheridan’s Pizarro, an adaptation of the German dramatist August von Kotzebue’s The Spanish in Peru; or, The Death of Rollo. Buoyed by his initial success Aldridge relocated to England in 1825 and pursued his dream. His biographers describe the struggle which he had to endure to gain the respect of critics. While he soon earned the stage epithet “African Roscius,” an allusion to the illustrious Roman actor Quintus Roscius Gallus (ca. 126-62 B.C.) and enjoyed phenomenal success in the English provinces, the blatant racism of some London critics tempered his success. On the continent, and especially in German speaking countries, however, he became the recipient of extraordinary honors. In Berlin, Breslau, Vienna, Budapest, Königsberg, Berne, Frankfurt/Main, Dresden, Gotha, he was almost universally lionized by adoring fans and critics. While English critics and audiences expected him to play roles that hinged on his race, such as Othello or Shylock in The Merchant of Venice, he appeared on continental stages in other Shakespearean roles including Lear and Macbeth. The impact of Aldrige’s talent is reflected in the honors he received from monarchs in continental Europe. Friedrich Wilhelm IV, King of Prussia, awarded him a first-class Prussian Gold Medal in Art and Science. Franz Josef I, Emperor of Austria-Hungary, followed suit with the Grand Cross of Leopold. In Berne Aldridge was awarded the medal of merit in the form of a Maltese cross. His influence was especially felt in the duchy of Saxe-Meiningen where the future duke, Georg II, closely observed Aldridge’s interpretation of Shakespeare and incorporated it along with his own ideas in the Meiningen Ensemble, a theater group which had a signal impact on European dramaturgical practice in latter half of the nineteenth century. Aldridge never returned to the United States. He had apparently made plans to do so but died while performing in Poland. His daughter, Amanda Christina Elisabeth Aldridge (1866-1956), a noted composer, played a role in the careers of such notable twentieth century African-American performers as Marian Anderson, Paul Robeson, and Roland Hayes – all of whom performed to acclaim in Germany. Leroy Hopkins earned a BA in German/Russian at Millersville in 1966 and a Ph.D. in Germanic Languages and Literatures at Harvard University in 1974. He has served on the Pennsylvania Humanities Council and the Black History Advisory Committee of the Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission. Since 1983 he has been on the board of the Lancaster County Historical Society where he served three terms as board president. His research interests are local African-American history (esp. in Pennsylvania Dutch country) and the interactions of Africans, African-Americans, Germans, and German-Americans in Europe, America, and Africa. He has published articles on those topics in Europe, Africa, and here in the U.S. He is a member of the Alle Lernen Deutsch committee of the AATG (American Association of German Teachers) as well as a board member of the BGCS (Black German Cultural Society) for whom he is collecting and editing autobiographical statements of Afro-Germans with a connection to the U.S. Links: Black
History Month: Germany and African Americans, by Leroy Hopkins (TWIG,
February 8, 2008) |
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