No CrossRef data available.
Article contents
German Operatic Ambitions at the Beginning of the Nineteenth Century
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 01 January 1977
Extract
In 1804 the Leipzig Allgemeine musikalische Zeitung published a long account of an opera performance in the fictitious town of Krähwinkel. It was, it seems, a fairly typical evening. The hero was so vigorously applauded for his big aria that he lost his place; the heroine had to repeat a scene, thereby making nonsense of the plot. Tremendous enthusiasm greeted the soprano, ‘a large, well-rounded figure of which there was so much to see that no question arose of listening’ – a sculptor could have made two sopranos out of the material allotted by nature to one, though the Krähwinklers regarded her as a paragon of nymph-like beauty. The tragic hero had about enough talent to perform Pickelhäring, and the Priest boomed his aria in tones more suitable to sailors' songs. The décor included a sunset contrived by means of sulphur matches attached to a windmill. Between the acts, the Kapellmeister held court in the aisles, modestly accepting for his opera the rapturous praises of the Krähwinklers. Only one member of the audience remains silent, a stranger whose glum attitude the Krähwinklers find offensive. Goaded by two neighbours into giving the reasons for his silence, he objects that the music has totally failed to convey the feeling and spirit of the poem, and he gives his chapter and verse. When they comment sarcastically on his familiarity with the text, he reveals himself as its author.
- Type
- Research Article
- Information
- Copyright
- Copyright © 1979 The Royal Musical Association and the Authors
References
NOTES
1 Allgemeine musikalische Zeitung (hereafter AMZ), vii (1804), 97–101.Google Scholar
2 K. T. von Küstner, Taschen und Handbuch für Theaterstatisik (Leipzig, 1857).Google Scholar
3 Paldarnus, F. C., Das deutsche Theater der Gegenwart (Mainz, 1857).Google Scholar
4 See Goethe, Dichtung und Wahrheit, book 3, and for a later account of Marchand, book 17. See also Wilhelm Meister, especially book 2, chap. 10 and book 3, chaps. 1 and 7, for an account of a contemporary travelling company.Google Scholar
5 Article signed ‘Melos’ in the Morgenblatt für gebildete Stände, cxc. (9 August 1810); variously reprinted, most reliably in G. Kaiser (ed.), Sämtliche Schriften von Carl Maria von Weber (Berlin and Leipzig, 1908).Google Scholar
6 A. von Weilen (ed.), Carl Ludwig Costenoble't Tagebücher (Berlin, 1912).Google Scholar
7 Castelli, I., Memoren meines Leberis (Vienna and Prague, 1861).Google Scholar
8 E. von Bamberg (ed.), Henriette Caroline Friederike von Heygendorff: Die Erinnerungen der Caroline Jagemann (Dresden, 1926).Google Scholar
9 Genast, E., Aus dem Tagebuch eines alten Schauspielers (Leipzig, 1862).Google Scholar
10 AMZ, xix (1817), 406.Google Scholar
11 AMZ, i (1798), 1.Google Scholar
12 AMZ, x (1808), 649ff.Google Scholar
13 AMZ, ix (1806), 42–3.Google Scholar
14 AMZ, xiv (1812), 765.Google Scholar
15 AMZ, xvii (1815), 467ff.Google Scholar
16 Genast, op. cit.Google Scholar
17 Article signed ‘T.f.z.Z’ (=Tätigkeit führt rum Ziel) in the Journal des Luxus und der Moden (1812), 799ff, reprinted most reliably in G. Kaiser, op. cit.Google Scholar
18 AMZ, xxi (1819), 3–6.Google Scholar
19 AMZ, xiv (1812), 654–8.Google Scholar
20 AMZ, xv (1813), 73–9.Google Scholar
21 Cornet, J., Die Oper in Deutschland und das Theater der Gegeriwart (Hamburg, 1849).Google Scholar
22 For a report on her Vienna début, see AMZ, xxiii (1820), 144–5.Google Scholar
23 M. Gregor-Dellin and D. Mack (ed.), Cosima Wagner: Die Tagebücher (1977).Google Scholar
24 Wagner, R., ‘Über das Dirigieren’ (1869), in Gesammelte Schriften und Dichtungen, viii (Leipzig, 1871–3).Google Scholar
25 AMZ, vi (1803), 165ff.Google Scholar
26 AMZ, xxiii (1821), 275.Google Scholar
27 Entry for 27 February 1812: MS in Berlin, Deutsche Staatsbibliothek.Google Scholar
28 AMZ, vi (1804), Intelligent Blatt, xvi.Google Scholar
29 Reichardt, J., Über die deutsche corrusche Üper (Hamburg, 1774).Google Scholar
30 Cornet, J., op. cit.Google Scholar
31 Tonkünstlen Leben variously and fragmentarily printed; best reprint in G. Kaiser, op. cit. Undine review, AMZ, xix (1817), 201ff; reprinted in G. Kaiser, op. cit. This passage of Tonkünstlers Leben and the review were both written in January 1817.Google Scholar
32 Berlinische musikalische Zeitung, xxii (1804).Google Scholar
33 AMZ, vi (1804), 786–91.Google Scholar
34 K. K. privilegierte Prager Zeitung, ccxlv (1816); reprinted in G. Kaiser, op. cit.Google Scholar
35 loc. cit.Google Scholar
36 La Ville sur Ilion, Comte de Lacépède: La poétique de la musique (Paris, 1785).Google Scholar
37 Charlton, D., ‘Motif and Recollection in Four Operas of Dalayrac’, Soundings, vii (1978).Google Scholar
38 Article signed ‘Simon Knaster’ in the Gesellschaft für gebildete Stände, Munich, lix (1811); reprinted in G. Kaiser, op. cit.Google Scholar
39 Article on Spohr's Faust, loc. cit.Google Scholar