Elsa Bernstein
| Elsa Bernstein | |
|---|---|
 |
|
| Born |
Else Porges October 28, 1866 Vienna |
| Died | July 2, 1949 (aged 82) Hamburg-Eimsbüttel |
| Nationality | Austrian-German |
| Other names | Ernst Rosmer |
| Occupation | writer, playwright |
| Notable work | Königskinder |
| Spouse(s) | Max Bernstein |
| Parent(s) | Heinrich Porges |
Else/Elsa Porges-Bernstein (born Else Porges, pseudonym: Ernst Rosmer; October 28, 1866 - July 2, 1949) was an Austrian-German writer and dramatist of Jewish descent.
Elsa Porges was born in Vienna, a daughter of Heinrich Porges (himself a close friend of Richard Wagner). At age 10 and at her own insistence, she attended the first complete four-opera performance of The Ring Cycle in Bayreuth in 1876, for which her father served as Wagner's special documentarian-archivist. Elsa was the cycle's youngest audience member.
With her marriage to journalist Max Bernstein. she became host to one of the most notable musical and literary salons of the late 19th-early 20th century, whose attendees at various times included Gerhart Hauptmann (whose son married Bernstein's daughter, Eva), Hugo von Hofmannsthal, Engelbert Humperdinck, Henrik Ibsen, Annette Kolb, Hermann Levi, Gustav and Alma Mahler, Thomas Mann, Rainer Maria Rilke, Richard Strauss, Bruno Walter and Max Weber, among many others.
She was educated at Munich and, for a short time, on the stage. A degenerative affliction of the eyes forced her to retire, and she thenceforth devoted herself to dramatic literature. Shortly after her marriage in 1892 to Max Bernstein, she wrote her first play, "Wir Drei" (English: "We Three"), which created considerable discussion; some saw it as a dramatization of the matrimonial and sexual views of Taine and Zola. (Although written under the pseudonym of Ernst Rosmer, her identity as the play's author was never secret.) Her next few plays fell short of exciting the same public attention: "Dämmerung" ("Twilight", 1893); "Die Mutter Maria," 1894; "Tedeum" (1896); "Themistokles" (1897); and Daguy Peters.
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