Sonnenthal, Adolf Von

Born Dec. 21, 1834, in Budapest; died Apr. 4, 1909, in Prague. Austrian actor.

Sonnenthal made his debut in 1851 in the Temesvar Theater. From 1856 through 1908 he acted in the Vienna Burgtheater. His appearance, elegance, and subtle and poetic acting ensured his success in the plays of A. Dumas fils and V. Sardou. But Sonnenthal yearned to create philosophical types, full of nobility, moral force, and inner harmony. His acting in the parts of Uriel Acosta (Uriel Acosta by Gutzkow), the Marquis of Posa, and Ferdinand (Don Carlos, Intrigue and Love by Schiller) ranks him among the best actors of the Burgtheater. He acted in modern plays by German authors, performing the role of Henschel (in Hauptmann’s Teamster Henschel) with great dramatic flare. Sonnenthal created a number of important characters in the classical repertoire: Nathan (Lessing’s Nathan the Wise), Faust (Goethe’s Faust), Hamlet, Othello, and King Lear (in Shakespeare’s plays), and Rakitin (Turgenev’s A Month in the Country).