Marcus "Max" Impresario Strakosch

Birth appears in Bučovice Births, Image #16 of 192 (www.badatelna.cz/fond/1073; see in MEDIA). The date in the record is "siebenundzwanzigsten September 1834."

Strakosch, Max, Theatrical Manager.

Max was the brother of Bohemian pianist, composer, and impresario, Maurice Strakosch, who was trained in Europe and came to New York in 1848 to work as a teacher. Max and Maurice worked together to organize a brief opera season at the Academy of Music in 1855; afterwards, Maurice began his own company and developed a partnership with Bernard Ullman, which lasted until 1860. Journalist Charles Godfrey Leland remembers Maurice in his memoir as “hard to deal with and irritable” (Memoirs 344).

Max’s role in this company is unclear, and he may have been confused with his brother on occasion; performers remember him as playing an important part in recruiting talent like Gottschalk and Racovita (G. Chase 296, Racovita 336). In January, 1862, Max wrote a letter to Gottschalk offering him the chance for a round of American concerts. Gottschalk accepted and began the concert series in New York in February (G. Chase 296). After Maurice left to tour Europe and manage his sister-in-law Adelina Patti’s concerts, Max remained in the United States and continued to put on operatic performances, including Don Pasquale, Norma, Il Trovatore, La Favorita, Don Giovanni, and Lucrezia Borgia (Tompkins and Kilby 156, 225).

Arrived in New York on one of his international trips, per ancestry.com: New York, Passenger Lists, 1820-1957

• Name: Max Strakosch
• Arrival Date: 31 Aug 1871
• Birth Date: abt 1835 Age: 36
• Ethnicity/ Nationality: American
• Place of Origin: United States of America
• Port of Departure: Liverpool, England and Queenstown, Ireland
• Destination: United States of America
• Port of Arrival: New York, New York
• Ship Name: Java

From The Australasian (Melbourne), April 29, 1871, page 8: An action for libel is pending against an American newspaper, the Rochester Union, for having staled that Mlle. Christine Nilsson is not equal as a singer to Jenny Lind. Mr. Max Strakosch, Miss Nilsson's entrepreneur, is the plaintiff.

Max Strakosch was forced into bankruptcy in 1881: there were $37,466 in liabilities and $14,000 in assets.

Mentioned in Australian Town and Country Journal (Sydney), October 26, 1889, page 29:

"The celebrated impresario, M. Strakosch, who for two years has been confined to his house in New York by a paralytic affection, has recently had another stroke of paralysis. There is no hope of his recovery, but it is considered probable that he may linger for years."

Max Strakosch obituary in Australian Town and Country Journal (Sydney), Saturday, 16 July 1892, page 28:

LINGUIST AND MUSICIAN. Mr. Max Strakosch, the famous operatic impresario, whose death is announced from New York, had long been ill. Some little time ago he was seized with a brain disease which incapacitated him for business. He was born in 1834, and was associated with his brother Maurice, who died in 1887, in the enterprise which led to the real operatic debut at New York in 1859 of Madame Patti, then a girl of 16. On Maurice's departure for Europe, Mr. Max Strakosch became manager, and he introduced to the United States Brignoli, the tenor (whom he subsequently brought to England), Mesdames Titiens, Christine Nilsson, Pauline Lucca, Parepa, Carlotta, Patti, Kellogg, Ilma di Murska, Albani, and Marie Boze, Signor Campanini, and other eminent artists. Mr. Max Strakosch was a great linguist, and is said to have been able to converse fluently in seven languages.