Alexander Moisiu, the great master of stage. The performer whose talent, with his voice, mimicry and gestures challenged the theater, the Albanian Alexander Moisiu, conquered without the slightest effort, the hearts and minds of art lovers.

Moisiu’s entire artistic activity took place in Vienna, to quickly penetrate other European theaters as well. After a number of consecutive successes as an actor, he engaged in almost all countries of Europe as well as North America.
In the years before the start of World War I, Moisiu was one of the greatest actors in German-speaking space. The artist’s field of action encompassed the whole spectrum of European theater literature, starting from the ancient Greek tragedy to the modern one.

His performances of Hamlet, Oedipus, Jedermann and Fedja in Leon Tolstoy’s “The Living Corpse” became very popular. He also starred in the theatrical premieres of Hauptmann, Wedekind and Hofmannsthal.

In 1920 he was the first to play the lead role in “Jedermann” at the Salzburger Festspiele.

Moisiu was highly regarded by the public for his beautiful voice as well as for his emotional involvement. In the period between the two wars he was a lot of time on tour. In Berlin, he acted at this time only as a guest. His way of acting was called outdated and could no longer be measured by theatrical developments, such as expressionism or Brecht or Piscator political theater.

From 1910 to 1935 he participated in 10 film productions, 8 of which were silent films. In 1935, shortly before his death, Moisiu sought the citizenship of Albania as well as that of Italy. Albania rejected this request, while Italy granted citizenship to Moisiu, when he was lying on his deathbed.

The greatest philosophers and writers of Europe evaluated this great actor. Renowned philosopher and one of the greatest novelists of the German language, Franz Kafka appreciated that Moisiu’s gestures were unique and unknown on world stages.

From the high evaluations of the most prominent personalities of world theater, dramaturgy and literature, we single out the following:

Max Reinhardi: Gentlemen! (addresses those who refused Moisi to play the first lead) I brought you an actor. The word actor according to a critic, is literally embodied in the person of Moisi. We have before us a real artist, a passionate human actor, who gives his body
, his soul, his blood and his nerves in creating the role… his magical voice, will fascinate you too.

Franc Kafka: The voice, mimicry and gestures of Moses represent something unique, which have never been seen in world stage art.

Stefan Zweig: When you are with Moisi, you do not hear indifferent words, good or bad about theater and actors, as the everyday craft loves… but discussion, discussion about mental, political issues, thoughts that catch the man upside down, catch him all the time… Therefore, when you are with Moisi, you always learn something new from the essence of the truth of the world…

Fan S. Noli: There is an Albanian boy who interprets Hamlet in Europe, better than me who translated it.

Viktor Eftimiu: Moisi with brilliant and attractive black eyes, with his warm and harmonious voice gave to the German language
the sound of the Adriatic, because each artist in himself sums up the goods of his homeland.

While the Kosovar author Bardhyl Kosova emphasized: The genius of Alexander Moisiu was crystallized in his vocal that resembled a complete orchestra. Moisiu’s voice was known for its great creative power, from the highest tones to the lowest tones, with which it conveyed all the meaning of the human being, to the softest and sweetest murmurs and whispers.

/Klara Ruci/