“Kottan’s Kiberer” and the bat’s frogs

“A situation has to be funny. But you have to take everything seriously and play it seriously,” is Franz Suhrada’s credo: “The more seriously you take the matter and play it, the better it comes across,” which the actor does in countless roles on stage and on television – has proven.

Also at the first musical festival in Bad Hall in 1998: As Cervantes in “The Man from La Mancha”, the Viennese fought against windmills. At the conductor’s podium at the time was Thomas Kerbl, director of the Operetta – Opera – Musical festival in Bad Hall since 2022, where Suhrada can be seen in Franz Lehár’s “The Land of Smiles” from July. “I do it with joy, I enjoy it,” says the 69-year-old, looking forward to his “great double role with its potential for change.” From being Franz’s servant in Vienna, he becomes the “chief eunuch” in the imperial palace in Beijing.

A device that director Kerbl added to the piece: Which father doesn’t want a protector for his daughter who enters into a marriage abroad?

Mundl and Kottan are cult

The friendship between the two artists goes back to 1987 in Amstetten. “The Fireworks” by Paul Burkhard was played. Suhrada played the funny uncle alongside Freddy Quinn. The legendary Herbert Prikopa and a young pianist with stage fright because of his first stage engagement, which was also recorded on television, played on two pianos: Thomas Kerbl, now a professor at the Institute for Singing and Music Theater at the Bruckner University in Linz.

“A circus tent was set up in front of the entrance to the Johann-Pölz-Halle. During the break, a boa constrictor was hung around the audience’s neck, which of course was paralyzed for a short time. There was also a toothless lion that ran after my colleague halfway through Amstetten,” Franz Suhrada tells one of many anecdotes with an obliging smile on his lips.

The day in 1976 when he was engaged at the Freie Volksbühne for “The Story of the Good Soldier Schwejk” is unforgettable. Because of his salary he had to open an account. “I walked into the bank and was the only customer” when the bank was robbed. “The bank officer threw the wad of money at the man and left.” He was asked to go to the police station as a witness: “That evening they took me to the theater in the police car,” where at first no one wanted to believe him: “Then I was the star for a week.”

Six months later, the first episode of the TV series “Kottan Investigates” flickered across the screens, in which Suhrada also got involved in a bank robbery as police officer Schreyvogel – one of his signature roles on television. He also appeared in “Tohuwabohu”, the “Alpensaga” and “A real Viennese doesn’t go down” with Karl Merkatz (Mundl): “Mundl and Kottan were cult series because they were extremely polarizing. There were supporters and complete opponents “, remembers the 69-year-old. “I always have to laugh when people complain but then even know the details. So they were looking after all.”

Being the audience’s favorite on TV has “a side effect: the medium of television categorizes you as a Kiberer vom Kottan,” says Krauss, who trained at the Viennese drama school. He also completed an apprenticeship as an industrial clerk at Böhler-Werke: “In 1976 I quit” because the Freie Volksbühne Berlin called for him.

13 years at the Volksoper

He had already gained his first experiences on the boards, which mean the world, as an extra in the State Opera. “I was one of the Egyptians in the Triumph March”, in Verdi’s “Aida”, alongside Placido Domingo, Gwyneth Jones and Maestro Riccardo Muti. “It was one of his first conductors.”

He celebrated his first stage successes, among others, at the Salzburg State Theater, where at the age of 25 he played the youngest “Frosch” in the operetta “Die Fledermaus”. “That’s where my frog career began,” which would take him halfway around the world. Also to Tokyo, where he spoke in German with subtitles, which is why the laughter came with a delay. “But I always included Japanese sentences. The Japanese are happy about that. At first I was surprised why the performance started at 2 p.m. But those are completely different geographical dimensions than ours,” he says. And fluently translates the word “bat” into Japanese, Spanish, Czech.

“For me, operetta is also a genre that has to be taken seriously and is always made fun of as an art form.” There’s one thing he appreciates less: “When operettas only play in a toilet or a subway station, I get so upset. As a viewer, I want to go to the theater to be entertained, but not after half an hour to be pissed off,” says the passionate theater goer. “I look at everything,” especially at the Volksoper, where he was engaged for 13 years. He officially retired last year.

It works without “female frogs”

He struggles with one word – “dust off”: “You don’t know how to interpret it. The notes are given. You can’t dust off a piece of music. I can’t say, I’ll leave out the F-sharp and instead make one “F out of it. I’m open to all outrageous acts as long as they’re within the scope of plausibility. If something goes completely off the rails just to provoke,” he doesn’t see much of it. He feels the same way about “Fröschinnen” or an “Orlofskaya” (instead of Prince Orlofsky) in “Der Fledermaus”: “Don’t be angry, they’re all doing well anyway.”

However, he places his fate “with joy” in the proven directing hands of Thomas Kerbl – as he did in 2016 as “Doktor Dolittle” in Bad Hall’s “My Fair Lady” and in 2022 in “The Merry Widow”. “This is a wonderful vacation for me with artistic tasks on the weekend,” which will also take him to the Mühlviertel this year: “The Land of Smiles” will be performed on the Aiserbühne in Schwertberg on August 15th and 16th.

Franz Suhrada, Actor