Friedmann, Siegwart

(1842-1916)

   Actor. Friedmann studied intensively with Bogumil Dawison, who took a fatherly interest in Friedmann and arranged for him to live with the Dawison family during his training in Dresden. Friedmann's first professional engagement was in Breslau for the 1863-1864 season, playing Ferdinand in Johann Wolfgang Goethe's Egmont. He joined Dawison in Berlin the next year at the Royal Theater; there and at the Mecklenburg Court Theater in Schwerin, he established his reputation in a wide variety of roles that included Franz von Moor, Hamlet, Richard III, Clavigo, and several others in the "classic" repertoire. He also became highly adept in leading roles by Paul Lindau, Hugo Lubliner, and Gustav von Moser. Heinrich Laube hired him in 1872 as a member of the Vienna City Theater company, and there he established himself as a star performer with lucrative appeal. He embarked on several profitable tours in the mid-1880s, but joined Adolph L'Arronge's consortium to run the Deutsches Theater in 1883. He remained longer with L'Arronge in Berlin than anyone else in the partnership. When he finally left in 1890, L'Arronge claimed Fried-mann's departure was the most difficult of all because he and Friedmann had become good friends, and theirs was "a friendship that endured the travails of the partnership" (L'Arronge, Deutsches Theater und Deutsche Schauspielkunst [Berlin: Concordia, 1896], 77). Friedmann went on tour in 1890 and retired from the stage in 1896.