100th anniversary of death - Austria / II. Republic of Austria 1962 - 1 Shilling

The stamp motif shows a portrait of the famous artist, theater masks in the background. In the line of ancestors of the main representatives of the cheerful Viennese folk play Johann Nestroy occupies a prominent position as a singer, actor, poet and master of the word. He was born the son of a lawyer in the "Sternhof" in the first district of Vienna, Jordangasse 5, on December 7, 1801. After graduation, he studied law, but his beautiful bass voice determined him another life after a two-year university visit. He went to the theater and became an opera singer. He performed for the first time on August 24, 1822, in Mozart's The Magic Flute in the K.K. Hofoperntheater next to the Kärntner Tor. A year later he went to Amsterdam and from there to Brno, where his development from the opera to the Volksstück took place. In 1831 he came back to Vienna after several stops and was hired to the Theater an der Wien. As a result, he wrote his famous plays, such as "The evil spirit Lumpazivagabundus," "He wants to make a joke" or "The Broken". After his resignation from the theater in 1860 Nestroy wanted to spend a peaceful retirement and lived alternately in Ischl and Graz. He died on 5 May 1862 as a result of a stroke. The Theater an der Wien, Nestroy's main activity, was ceremoniously opened on May 28, 1962 after its restoration after the war.