Michael Heribert Huber (born 5 July 1933 in Ingolstadt) is a German actor and chansonnier. In 1968 he was granted Austrian citizenship. He lives in Austria.
Partner Loek Huisman
Queer Places:
Burgtheater, Universitätsring 2, 1010 Wien, Austria
Michael Heribert Huber (born 5 July 1933 in Ingolstadt) is a German actor and chansonnier. In 1968 he was granted Austrian citizenship. He lives in Austria.
Heltau came to Austria as a child in the Salzkammergut, where he also attended school. He completed his acting training at the Max Reinhardt Seminar in Vienna. He then made his debut in Würzburg, from where Fritz Kortner brought him to the Munich Residenztheater. This was followed by the Theater in der Josefstadt and the Volkstheater in Vienna, the Schillertheater and the Theater am Kurfürstendamm in Berlin, the Hamburg Schauspielhaus and the Hamburg Thalia Theater. From 1959 to 1961 he was a guest at the Ruhr Festival in Recklinghausen and from 1964 regularly at the Salzburg Festival, where he first impersonated the Good Journeyman in Jedermann alongside Walther Reyer. In 1963 he made his big breakthrough as Troilus in William Shakespeare's Troilus and Cressida at the Vienna Volkstheater and immediately afterwards at the Hamburg Schauspielhaus. In 1965, under the direction of Giorgio Strehler, he played Bassa Selim in the quickly legendary production of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart's Die Entführung aus dem Serail for the Salzburg Festival (stage design and costumes: Luciano Damiani, conductor Zubin Mehta; with Anneliese Rothenberger, Fritz Wunderlich et al.), which was shown with Heltau until 1974. For the first time, Heltau and Strehler brought this hitherto neglected role to the fore. The actor and the director later worked together several more times, both at the Festival (Heltau as Henry VI in The Play of the Mighty after William Shakespeare at the Felsenreitschule) and at the Vienna Burgtheater (1974 Trilogy of the Summer Retreat by Carlo Goldoni; 1975 The Game of the Mighty; 1994 The Giants of the Mountain by Luigi Pirandello) and at the Paris Théâtre du Châtelet (Mackie Messer in the French-language version of The Threepenny Opera, 1986/87). Vienna's Burgtheater, in particular, has been closely associated with his name since the 1970s, as he has enjoyed great success there for decades. In addition, he played at many other theaters in Germany and Austria in the course of his career. He was also heard again and again with literary solo programs and he also spoke audio books. In addition to the stage, he also starred in several films, but his passion has always been the live experience on stage. In addition to his acting activities, he was also able to celebrate great success as a singer. Many of his vocal programs have also been broadcast on television and released on sound carriers. His musical repertoire includes German-language interpretations of chansons by Jacques Brel, Charles Aznavour, Charles Trenet and others. Jacques Brel gave him the exclusive rights for the German-language interpretation of his chansons, which were first translated into German by Werner Schneyder and later Loek Huisman for Heltau. [1] In addition to his interpretations of French-Belgian chansons, he sang songs from operettas and musicals and is also considered an important interpreter of Viennese songs.
In June 2014, at the age of almost 81, Heltau spoke publicly about his homosexuality for the first time in an interview with ORF. [2] He had been dating Dutch actor, director, writer and translator Loek Huisman since he was 20 years old. [3][4] The two were a couple for over 64 years and after the death of his partner, Heltau declared his final farewell to the stage in spring 2018 at the age of 84 and reaffirmed this decision at the presentation of the CD and DVD of his last solo program A blue balloon I want to have! at Vienna's Burgtheater. [5] He lives in a house with a large garden in Vienna's rural Salmannsdorf district in Vienna's 19th district of Döbling. [6]
In 2006, the photo artist Ilse Haider edited photos of Michael Heltau's youth for the new portrait gallery of the Burgtheater. Since 2013, a portrait of Heltau, made by his partner Loek Huisman, has hung in the museum's Gallery of Honour.
My published books:
