POSSART, ERNST

(1841-1921)

Actor, director. Possart was a pastor's son who began his acting career in 1861 with his father's malediction, "A comedian in the House of Possart! A drifter, a vagabond!" The son was later knighted and raised to the aristocracy, becoming one of the most respected and highly paid actors in 19th-century German theater. He performed in several provincial stages before becoming a director at theMunichCourt Theater in 1878. In 1883 he briefly joinedAdolph L'Arrongeas a founding director of theDeutsches TheaterinBerlinbut resigned shortly thereafter and returned to Munich. In 1887 he agreed to becomeOskarBlumenthal's artistic director at the new Lessing Theater in Berlin, where he played Helmer in Germany's first unabridged version of Henrik Ibsen'sA Doll's House. He left the Lessing in 1892, again for the Munich Court Theater, where he becameintendant. In Munich he built the new Prince Regent's Theater and established theWagnerand Mozart Festivals. On his numerous tours to New York and Chicago, Possart appeared with several other German stars, usually in large-cast productions of classics. He played Polonius inHamletoppositeLudwig Barnayas the eponymous hero; Franz von Moor inFriedrichSchiller'sDie Räuber(The Robbers), with Barnay as his brother Karl; and the villainous Gessler inWilhelm Tell(William Tell). American audiences found him declamatory, though his tendency to orate found widespread approval in Munich.