Biography
Lion Solser was born in Rotterdam as the son of Johannes Solser and the stage actress Engelina Florina Hartlooper on February 6, 1877. He had brothers and sisters (Louis, Michiel, Jeanette Johanna and Engelina Adriana). He married Adrienne Willemsens (Schaerbeek, Belgium, March 25, 1872 - Amsterdam, March 5, 1962), was a comedian and committed suicide in Rotterdam at the age of 38 on August 3, 1915. Lion was buried in Diemen.
Lion Solser came from a lineage of part variety performers and part stage actors. His mother was also an actress, but went across the country with his father to earn more money singing verse. Solser attended drama school from 1889 to 1892. His brother Michiel died at a young age and Lion took his place in the operetta, and he worked with Piet Hesse from 1896 until his death. He formed an ensemble with Hesse, which also included Adrienne Willemsens, his wife. Lion Solser was a director and comedian, often taking on female roles. For years he played the lead role in "Do you know about Schellevis-Mie?" and with Hesse as the cross-dressing duo Wip and Snip, probably the source of inspiration for the later duo Snip and Snap by Willy Walden and Piet Muijselaar. He also performs with Hesse in the silent film "Solser en Hesse" by director M H Laddé from 1900, a film that has unfortunately been lost and in the first Dutch film, "the deranged hengelaar". Abraham's sister was the variety artist and humorist Adrienne Solser.
When Lion died, Het Nieuws van de dag voor Nederlandsch-Indies read:
"Lion Solser" Our collaborator Vosmaer writes to us on 5 August: For a very large number of Indies people it will probably not be necessary to describe the person of the best transvesti, and one of the best duetists and genre comedians our country has known, who has a nervous disorder of took us away: Lion Solser. Most of my readers, I think, must have heard and seen at least once in their lives that little, elegant couple singer, so classy in the black skirt, and yet who in an instant transformed himself into the most slender Jordanian shark bay or maddened peasant girl. And in doing so have admired his expressive, expressive, powerful and the largest halls filling voice and crisp diction into the smallest corners.
Lion was a brother of Michel Solser, creator of the, so to speak, immortal figure of 'Flipje' from Reyding's 'Revue Artistique'. And he resembled that brother in many ways, who was again the son of an excellent comedian. That may not mean much to non-Amsterdammers, but those few lines say it all for us.
Lion Solser turned 38 years old. He began very early in the career that had been prescribed for him, if only out of respect for his ancestors. At the age of about 19 - - I could say it exactly if I went to ask his long-term friend and associate Hesse, who lives in the same house as me, but I dare not disturb him on this funeral day, because he is miserable, devastated -he set foot on the variety stage as a chansonnier, humorist, character comedian.
But only for a short time did he act alone. He was very fortunate to meet Piet Hesse, a few years older than him, who was also an excellent and cultured couple singer, and from that moment on their fortunes-if one can speak of that in our country with its narrow borders-was made. For Lion Solser could be an excellent humorist - he knew absolutely nothing about saving money, managing money, and in this precisely Piet Hesse was a matador, a genius - a born businessman.
"Eighteen years ago, I saw them both perform for the first time during a Groningen fair. They were a "number" of a specialty program, but what a! Usually they first sang a genre couplet, Hesse as an old gentleman, Solser as an old lady, and as a bis number one or two couplets 'with their own head', in the skirt. Even then it was striking how spry, 'mundane' and elegant those two duets presented themselves in the skirts, how funny their old man and wife couples were - and how the two were literally perfect for each other.
Hesse soon realized that his couplets were going in. Solser made many of them himself. And so they started to print and sell those things to amateurs, who wanted to recite them in a "closed circle", but also to professional comedians. But Piet Hesse conceived bigger plans. After some years of singing together at all the fairs in the country, and here in the capital with Frits van Haarlem or in "Flora" (I believe also with Mulder in the Kalverstraat, now long gone), the two partners formed a small troupe that would perform specific Amsterdam happy games, true genre pieces. But before that, Solser would first win laurels with his one-act play "Half an hour at the office of the Moderne Tooneel", in which, following Henri de Vries, he was the first Dutchman to "introduce" the genre here. alone performed six different roles in a truly exquisite manner. With this, Solser and Hesse - and with the greatest success - traveled all over our country about 1910.
That same year they formed their troop. And with that little group they performed Amsterdam sketches, mostly written by Tony Schmitz on the instructions of Lion Solser, in a way that I do not hesitate to call unsurpassable of its kind. One would perhaps not call their actors "first-class powers" everywhere. But preceded by Solser they all, down to the very least, managed to fit themselves so perfectly into the typical Amsterdam milieu that Schmitz portrayed us, that the spectators in many a scene had to admit that reality could not be more real.
Successively, from 1911 onwards, Solser and Hesse regaled us with: "Have you seen the child yet?" (Grandthéatre), "Are you also coming to the Wedding of Mietje T' (ditto), "The legacy of uncle Janus" (Hollandsche Schouwburg), "Have you heard of Schellevis Mie ?" (Panoptic).
With all those Amsterdam Sketches, in which Solser invariably played a female role, usually a splendor of a Jordanian, the partners have earned a lot of money, and no one begrudges them that, because they worked very hard to get the interplay as Solser did. especially absolutely wanted.
In this respect -and also as a 'piece' -- 'Mietje's wedding' suited me best personally. The 'pertij', the wedding guests, the furniture in the Jordanian house, the puppet show, where more benevolent amateurs than talented amateurs among the guests played their lectures - everything was so beautiful, 'real', so cut and copied from life, and so lifelike portrayed by all the actors, even if they had the smallest part to play, as I have seen it, frankly speaking, but very seldom on other, even the best, scenes.
And of the preparation of these performances the greatest credit goes to Lion Solser, who, in addition to being an excellent transvestite, was a sensitive and strict director, who personally took care of the smallest, apparently insignificant details.
Or that astonishing need for labor that being overwhelmingly busy has wrecked him?
Lately the already hot-blooded Solser has been very "troublesome." His friends had to keep a close eye on him after he once, for some futile reason, suddenly, in the middle of his part, began to lash out at the audience, something a man like Solser would never have done under normal circumstances. That was during a performance by Schellevis Mie, now about six months ago. Then things quickly, anxiously, quickly diminished with him. He started to rant for no reason, became quarrelsome, which also did not fit with his nature, took a month off to 'rest completely', seemed completely healed, suddenly collapsed again, until his inexorable nervous illness struck him down with one last blow.
Today Lion Solser is buried, under an interest that is hard to imagine. He leaves behind a wife and daughter - and an audience that will remember his idiosyncratic art for a long time to come.
