Robert Vambery

Robert Vambery was a theatre director, author and teacher, associated with the works of Kurt Weill.

Life and career

Vambery was born in Budapest and educated in Germany. In 1927 Ernst Josef Aufricht engaged him as the literary director of the Theater am Schiffbauerdamm in Berlin. In that role he was involved in the first production of Bertolt Brecht and Kurt Weill's The Threepenny Opera, and made German versions of Donizetti's La Fille du régiment and Gilbert and Sullivan's The Pirates of Penzance.
Vambery left Germany in 1933 when the Nazis came to power. He moved to Paris, where he and Weill collaborated on an operetta, Der Kuhhandel. The work was a failure when it premiered in 1935, but has since been successfully revived.
In 1938 Vambery moved to the United States. He taught in the drama department at Columbia University, where he was associated with the world premiere in 1941 of Paul Bunyan by Benjamin Britten and W. H. Auden. He contributed to publications including Die Weltbühne and The Nation.