Quiz

Austrian actor, cabaret performer and opera director, trained at the Max-Reinhardt Seminar and first on stage at the Vienna Volkstheater.

Co-director of the Theater in der Josefstadt from 1988 to 1997.

Schenk studied acting at the Max Reinhardt Seminar, and started his acting career at the Theater in der Josefstadt and the Wiener Volkstheater, and as a comedian at Vienna's Kabarett Simpl.

In 1957, Schenk directed his first opera, Mozart's The Magic Flute for the Salzburg Landestheater.

His directing career began in 1953 at small Viennese venues, later leading him to renowned stages like the Burgtheater, the Munich Kammerspiele or the Salzburg Festival, staging plays by William Shakespeare, Arthur Schnitzler, Ödön von Horváth, Anton Chekhov.

In 1965 Austrian television engaged him to direct a studio production of Verdi's Othello sung in German with a stellar cast.

In the United States, Schenk is especially known for his lavish, realist, traditionalist stagings at the Metropolitan Opera, most notably his production of Richard Wagner's four-opera epic Der Ring des Nibelungen which was hailed by traditionalist Wagnerian opera fans as one of the closest productions to Wagner's true vision. The production was retired from the Met in 2009.

Schenk has appeared in over 30 films (mostly in German).

He was contracted by the State Opera as a permanent producer for several seasons, while continuing his free-lance career as an actor, comedian and director in Austria and Germany, working for theaters, opera houses and television productions.

His breakthrough as an opera director came in 1962 with Alban Berg's Lulu at the Theater an der Wien. This production was later moved to the Vienna State Opera, where Schenk debuted in 1964 with Leos Janácek's Jenufa.

In October 2010, Schenk returned to the Met to revive his Don Pasquale with Netrebko.

The Metropolitan Opera currently uses his productions of Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg, Tannhäuser, Arabella, and Don Pasquale.

Many of his productions are available on DVD, including his Vienna State Opera productions of Fidelio and Rosenkavalier, and his Met productions of Parsifal, Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg, Tannhäuser and Der Ring des Nibelungen.

In December 2010, he revived his Rosenkavalier (conducted by Asher Fish, cast including Adrianne Pieczonka) at the Vienna State Opera.

In 1973, he directed Merry-Go-Round (der Reigen), a film based on Arthur Schnitzler's Reigen (with Helmut Berger, Sydne Rome, Senta Berger).

He provided entertainment on stage for well over 70 years.

Schenk performed as a cabaret artist in the Simpl cabaret in the 1950s , but in recent decades he has delighted audiences throughout the German-speaking world with his reading evenings under the motto "Things to Laugh About". Numerous records accompany this activity, in which he always plays the same role - Schenk.

During the 1970s and 1980s, Schenk was hired by La Scala, the Royal Opera House in Covent Garden, and German opera houses such as the Berlin State Opera, the Bavarian State Opera and the Hamburg State Opera.

Schenk was an Austrian cultural institution - opera director, actor and, above all, the uncrowned king of cultivated humor.

In March 2021, he announced his departure from the stage; his last role was that of the servant Firs in The Cherry Orchard at the Theater in der Josefstadt in November 2020.

In 2009, he received the Anton Seidl Prize ( Anton Seidl Award ) from the Wagner Society of New York for his expressive Wagner interpretations .

Schenk's operatic productions included works by Mozart, Gaetano Donizetti, Giuseppe Verdi, Antonín Dvorák, Giacomo Puccini, Richard Strauss, Richard Wagner, Ernst Krenek, and Friedrich Cerha.

Schenk also starred in the stage adaptation of Lily Brett's Chuzpe at the Kammerspiele Theatre in Vienna.

From 1986 to 1988, Schenk was a member of the board of directors of the Salzburg Festival , and from 1988 to 1997, Otto Schenk was director of the Theater in der Josefstadt (together with Robert Jungbluth ). In 2009, he received the Anton Seidl Prize ( Anton Seidl Award ) from the Wagner Society of New York for his expressive Wagner interpretations .

Otto Schenk had debuted at the Met with Puccini's Tosca in 1968; his 2006 farewell production was Donizetti's Don Pasquale with Anna Netrebko.

In the comic book The stupid and the clever - The best double conferences. (Text: Hugo Wiener - Drawings: Reinhard Trinkler/ Amalthea Signum Verlag ) the drawn main character of the sausage man is based on Otto Schenk, a reminiscence of his role in the ORF television series Heiße am Samstag .

He recieved in 1991 The Nestroy Ring. The Johann Nestroy Ring was an award that was given annually until 1999 to people who, through extraordinary and unusual achievements, have earned merit for the City of Vienna in the cultivation of satirical-critical portrayal of the nature of this city and its population in the spirit of Nestroy and who have expressed this criticism at the highest intellectual level.

Schenk received the Austrian Music Theater Award for Lifetime Achievement in 2023.

Schenk was awarded in 1994 with the Grand Golden Decoration of Honour for Services to the Republic of Austria.

He was award with the Bavarian film prize in 1993.