The Kootenai herald. [volume] (Kootenai, Idaho) 1891-1904, 1896-06-06
THEATRICAL MISERY IN VIENNA
What n Parliamentary Commission
Learned About Actresses.

Austria has a parliamentary commits
sion. which was appointed early last win
ter to investigate the condition of women
workers in the empire, says the New
York Sun. This commission has turned
up a vast amount of hidden Vienna life,
to the horror OF humane inhabitants Of
the imperial CITY. IL mas learned, for IN
stance, that young women in the feather
industry usually have to be content with
$3.50 to 81 each a week, although the most
skillful ones mount, after years of prac-
tice into a SO class, that the hours of
work are II to 16 a day, and that coffee
with dark bread is the unvarying menu
at all meals, year in and year out. Sim
liar conditions were found in 20 or more
other industries which are largely in the
hands of women. AS women in Austrias
industrial life are not expected to obtain
much more than a bare living, these rev.
Citations have not excited a remarkable
amount of comment but the information
given the commissioners regarding wom-
en- on the stage, who heretofore have
passed in Vienna for well-fed and we'll
clad persons, has caused a little sensa-
ton and no end of newspaper writing
Chorus girls, actresses and theater di-
rectors were brought before the COM
mission They all said the rush to the
stage had been overdone by Austrian
women in recent years. Vienna has more
than 40 schools of acting and operatie
singing, which were crowded with girl
students. The pressure of young actress
SEES and singers was so great that at 30 the
working actresses and singers were
regarded as too old for much more
USE and were relegated to OBJ
scure parts or put off the stage. In
the last two years 20 or 30 such actresses
had become beggars. A few of them had
died on the country roads, along which
they had been begging for food.
The young girl graduate of a Vienna
school of acting, the witnesses told the
commission, begins work at a first class
theater for $25 a month, and in many
cases must provide her own costumes. A
chorus girl if in the best luck, gets $2i
a month; that is the maximum. Many
chorus girls receive but So each a month
and those who receive $15 each a month
are supposed 10 be doing we'll. In the
court opera the chorus girl az the begin
ming of her career has a salary of $12. so a
month. Her salary is increased with each
succeeding year of service until, after Il
|
and imperial sum Of $50 a month. In the
Theater An dor Wien the chorus girls
pay is from IS to $3.50 a month; in the
; Carl theater from $40 to $3.50; in the
Josephstadt theater, from $3.50 to $3.50; il
} the German Peoples theater, from S175 t
$500 a year. One young woman who haC
worked three years at the conservator,
before going on the stage told the com
mission she had been lucky enough to ge
a place in a chorus at a salary of s.
) week. Another young woman. who hat
studied with musical professors of higl
, reputation for six years, confessed tina
she had been unable to do better than s
month. One director told of 10 girl
in his chorus who received no salarie
2 whatever, and must provide their owl
! toilets. The best paid of his chorus girl
: received SIS month.
The commissioners were anxious to fin
out how all these young women of tn
= stage were kept from starvation. The an
=, swers to questions on this point wer
varied Some of the girls did fancy wor
!, at home; others plain sewing. The vas
: majority, however, were obliged to loo
: out for what the Viennese call "caval
e iers."