Kurt Gänzl
Kurt Gänzl | |
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![]() Kurt Gänzl in 2018 | |
Born | Brian Roy Gallas 15 February 1946 |
Alma mater | University of Canterbury |
Occupation(s) | Writer, historian Former casting director and singer |
Notable work | The Encyclopedia of the Musical Theatre(1994, 2001) |
Partner | Ian Bevan (died 2006) |
Relatives | John Gallas(brother) |
Kurt-Friedrich Gänzl(born 15 February 1946) is a New Zealand writer, historian and formercasting directorand singer best known for his books aboutmusical theatre.
After a decade-long playwriting, acting and singing career, and a second career as a casting director ofWest Endshows, Gänzl became one of the world's most important chroniclers of musical theatre history.[1]According to Christophe Mirambeau of Canal Académie, "Kurt Gänzl is an institution. No one interested in musicals and operetta can ignore that. He is the world reference – with some few others, likeGerald Bordman,Ken Bloom,orAndrew Lamb– for that subject. "[2]He has written more than a dozen books on musical theatre topics, as well as blogs and articles about musicals, light opera and people, especially of theVictorian era,involved with the musical stage. He has also translated French poetry.
Early life and career
[edit]Gänzl was bornBrian Roy Gallas[3]inWellington,New Zealand, and is of Austrian descent, the son of Frederick, né Fritz Eduard Gänzl, an educator who moved to New Zealand before World War II and became Headmaster ofWellington Technical Collegeand who adopted the name Fred Gallas, and his wife Nancy, née Agnes Ada Welsh.[3][4]He studied law and classics at theUniversity of Canterburyin New Zealand, receiving a master's degree in 1967 while performing as a radio and concert vocalist.[2]
Early in his career, Gänzl wrote plays. His one-act playsElektraandThe Women of Troywere produced in New Zealand in 1966 and 1967 by Elmwood Players. The latter play won theBritish Drama League(Dramamagazine) award in 1967.[3]The next year, Gänzl joined the New Zealand Opera Company as abasssoloist.[2]After the company closed in 1968, he moved to London and studied for a year at theLondon Opera Centre.For several more years, he worked as a performer, including a 1969 season in the hit London show,The Black and White Minstrels,[5]and afterwards inMonte Carloand on cruise ships. His last show was the 1974 production ofTommy Steele's adaptation ofHans Andersenat theLondon Palladium.[6]Throughout the 1980s, together with hisdomestic partner,the theatrical agent Ian Bevan, he worked as a talent agent and as a casting director forHarold Fieldingon over a dozen musicals and plays in London'sWest End theatresand for musical and operatic productions in Europe, Australia and America.[2][7]
Writing and later years
[edit]While still working as a casting director, Gänzl began writing theatre reference works. In 1986 he published his two-volume history,The British Musical Theatre(1986), which won the Roger Machell Prize for the year's best performing-arts book and theBritish Library Association'sMcColvinMedal for the outstanding reference work (any subject) of its season.[3]This was followed byGänzl's Book of the Musical Theatre(1988 withAndrew Lamb) andThe Blackwell Guide to the Musical Theater on Record(1989). At the end of the 1980s, Gänzl moved toSt. Paul de Vencein the south of France with Bevan to concentrate on writing full-time.[7]In the 1990s, he publishedThe Complete 'Aspects of Love'(1990), five editions ofMusicals(1995; US:Song and Dance: The Complete Story of Stage Musicals), andThe Musical: A Concise History(1997).
The Encyclopedia of the Musical Theatre
[edit]Gänzl's seminal reference work,The Encyclopedia of the Musical Theatre,was published in 1994 and greatly expanded in a second edition in 2001. It was aDartmouth Medalhonoree in 1995 and was awarded "Outstanding Reference Source" in 1997 by theAmerican Library Association.Theatre historianJohn Kenrickwrote: "Only serious research libraries carry this set listing thousands of shows and individuals. This expanded update of the 1995 original edition is the best source to date on European musicals, with solid coverage of Broadway too."[8]Another critic calls it "the most exhaustive study anyone has yet made of musicals, and it is difficult to imagine it being done in a better or more thorough way."[9]
The Timeswrote, "So, withThe Encyclopaedia of the Musical Theatre,Kurt Gänzl... has transcended all rivals. His work embraces not only Broadway andShaftesbury Avenue,but Vienna and Budapest, Paris and Rome, Sydney and Toronto. He even apologises for including only three New Zealand entries. If there is a musical production of any kind that he does not know about, then it is odds-on that nobody else does either. "[10]Gänzl has said, "My goals are to make the musical theater a respectable academic subject and to put the musical theater into its international context. I want to bring the so-called 'musical' and 'operetta' back together as part of the same art form and to dispel some of the early myths and quasi-historical errors and distortions that have become accepted as part of musical theater history. "[3]
Later years
[edit]In the early 2000s, Gänzl and Bevan moved to a home inSefton, New Zealand,where Gänzl completed biographies ofVictorian burlesquequeenLydia Thompson,Broadway authorWilliam Gilland Victorian singing starEmily Soldene,and in 2017 a compendium of 100 biographies titledVictorian Vocalists.[11]After Bevan's death in 2006, Gänzl spent time as a musical critic in Berlin, Germany, and then lived inYamba,Australia.[12]
![](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/0/0e/Kurt_G%C3%A4nzl_2024.jpg/220px-Kurt_G%C3%A4nzl_2024.jpg)
Gänzl has published more than a dozen books on musical theatre and contributed many biographical entries to theOxford Dictionary of National BiographiesandGrove's Dictionary of Music and Musicians.He has also published biographies elsewhere, such as for Theatre Heritage Australia.[1]Since 2007 he has contributed more than a thousand entries about Victorian and Edwardian singers, actors and musical theatre works, on his blogKurt of Gerolstein.[13]Over the years he has also worked with his younger brother, the poetJohn Gallas,[12][14]on translations of works byBaudelaire,[15]Verhaeren,[16]Materlinck,Yourcenar,Anna de Noailles,Nerval,Florianand others, includingBorel'sRhapsodies(2022).[16][17]
Gänzl has an avid interest in the sport ofharness racingand has owned and bred racehorses.[11]
Books
[edit]- 1986:The British Musical Theatre(2 vols.; Macmillan Press)ISBN0-19-520509-X
- 1988:Gänzl's Book of the Musical Theatre(withAndrew Lamb;Bodley Head/Schirmer)ISBN0-02-871941-7
- 1989:The Blackwell Guide to the Musical Theatre on Record.BlackwellISBN0-631-16517-7
- 1990:The Complete "Aspects of Love"(Aurum Press)ISBN0-670-83192-1
- 1994:The Encyclopedia of the Musical Theatre(Blackwell/Schirmer; 2 vols, expanded in 2001 to 3 vols.)ISBN0-02-864970-2
- 1995:Musicals: the Illustrated Story(Carlton)ISBN0-7475-2381-9
- 1995 (US edition of same):Song and Dance: The Complete Story of Stage Musicals(Smithmark Publishers)ISBN0-8317-1890-0
- 1995:Gänzl's Book of the Broadway Musical(Schirmer; Macmillan)ISBN0-02-870832-6
- 1997:The Musical: A Concise History(Boston: Northeastern University PressISBN1-55553-311-6
- 2002:Lydia Thompson:Queen of Burlesque(NY & London: Routledge)ISBN0-415-93766-3
- 2002:William B. Gill:From the Gold Fields to Broadway(Routledge)ISBN0-415-93767-1
- 2007:Emily Soldene:In Search of a Singer(Steele Roberts)ISBN978-1-877338-72-4
- 2017:Victorian Vocalists(Taylor and Francis)ISBN978-1-1381-0317-7
- 2021:Gilbert and Sullivan: The Players and the Plays(State University of New York Press)ISBN978-1-4384-8545-4
- 2022:Rhapsodies 1831: Petrus Boreltranslated with John Gallas (Carcanet Classics)ISBN978-1800172203
- 2022:The Musical: A Concise History(2022 version) with Jamie Findlay (State University of New York Press)ISBN978-1-4384-8751-9
References
[edit]- ^ab"Kurt Gänzl",Theatre Heritage Australia, 2 September 2020
- ^abcdMirambeau, Christophe."Kurt Gänzl and Emily Soldene (1840–1912)",Canal Académie, 17 June 2007, accessed 8 May 2018
- ^abcdeKurt Ganzlat Contemporary Authors Online, Gale, 2002 (subscription required). Accessed 22 March 2009
- ^Gänzl, Kurt."Gänzl";and"The family hits Broadway and Hollywood!",Kurt of Gerolstein,29 September 2011 and 24 December 2016, respectively, both accessed 16 July 2020
- ^Gänzl, Kurt."The Magic of the Minstrels",Kurt of Gerolstein,5 July 2017
- ^"The Singers", Palladium Theatre programme (1974);Hans Anderson,Guide to Musical Theatre, accessed 21 January 2010
- ^abGänzl, Kurt."A Magical Musical",Kurt of Gerolstein,28 February 2014, accessed 16 July 2020
- ^Kenrick, John."Suggested Reading",Musicals 101: The Cyber Encyclopedia of Musical Theatre, TV and Film(2004)
- ^O'Connor, Patrick.The Times Literary Supplement,3 November 1995
- ^Green, Benny."All-singing, all-dancing haul of fame",The Times,2 May 1994
- ^abGänzl, Kurt."Elena is a racehorse",Kurt of Gerolstein,13 December 2008, accessed 8 May 2018
- ^abGänzl, Kurt."The Ages of an Author",Kurt of Gerolstein,2 October 2020;The Times,2 January 2007, p. 48; and Newley, Patrick.Ian Bevan obituary,The Stage,8 December 2006
- ^Gänzl, Kurt."Kurt of Gerolstein",BlogSpot, accessed 25 June 2020
- ^"John Gallas",Carcanet Press, accessed 29 April 2014
- ^Rumens, Carol."Poem of the week: 'Cat' by John Gallas",The Guardian,1 December 2014
- ^ab"Ten Poems (translated by John Gallas and Kurt Ganzl)",PNReview 186, Vol. 35, No 4, March – April 2009
- ^Zubair, Sarah-Jane. "Ecstatic and intoxicate", review ofRhapsodies 1831: Petrus Borel,The Times Literary Supplement,30 September 2022
External links
[edit]![](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/4/4a/Commons-logo.svg/30px-Commons-logo.svg.png)
- 1946 births
- 20th-century New Zealand dramatists and playwrights
- 20th-century New Zealand historians
- 20th-century New Zealand male singers
- 21st-century New Zealand historians
- Casting directors
- Gay dramatists and playwrights
- Gay singers
- LGBT historians
- Living people
- New Zealand expatriates in the United Kingdom
- New Zealand gay musicians
- New Zealand gay writers
- New Zealand LGBT dramatists and playwrights
- New Zealand LGBT singers
- New Zealand male dramatists and playwrights
- New Zealand non-fiction writers
- New Zealand people of Austrian descent
- Translators of Charles Baudelaire
- Translators of Gérard de Nerval
- University of Canterbury alumni
- University of Canterbury Faculty of Law alumni