Albert Lortzing

Albert Lortzing (born the October 23rd 1801 with Berlin - deceased the January 21st 1851), was a Compositeur, Acteur and German Chanteur .

He is one of the principal representatives of the Germanic alternative of the comic Opéra, the Spieloper .

Life

Albert Lortzing is the son of a former leather tradesman, Johann Gottlieb Lortzing, and of his wife, Charlotte Sophie. His/her parents are the founders of the theatrical company Urania and, impassioned this art, they made their trade of it. Thus, after having yielded the family trade, they give representations through almost all the German provinces.

In 1811, the family moves with Wrocław (in German, Breslau ). During the summer 1813, they are requested Bamberg, Cobourg, Strasbourg, like Baden-Baden and Freiburg.

The first appearance on scene of Albert Lortzing proceeds with the Cathédrale Notre-Dame of Freiburg. The young actor, 12 years old, starts the enthusiasm of his public (" unter lebhaftem Beifall ", under a rain of applause) during the interval by reciting poems. Starting from 1817, the Lortzing family joined the Rhenish troop of Josef Derossi. They occur on the scenes of Bonn and Aachen, like with Düsseldorf, Barmen or Cologne. Albert is made appreciate of the public but does not limit itself to the theater: indeed, it is also employed like Ténor.

The January 30th 1824, it marries the actress Rosina Regine Ahles (eleven children were born from this union). Starting from the autumn 1826, the young couple integrates the theater of the court of Detmold. They are thus of passage to Münster and Osnabrück, and it is in this last city that Albert Lortzing joined the Franc-maçonnerie. Indeed, under the police State founded by the Chancellor Metternich, this organization represented a loophole very used by the artists.

With Detmold, Albert Lortzing, who also have a vocation of type-setter, writing for example a Oratorio, " Die Himmelfahrt Christi " ( the rise of Christ ). This work is represented with Münster and its creator will undergo the critic of the president of the government of Münster which declared that the actor did not have very to make a vocation of type-setter (" als Type-setter durchaus keinen Ruf habe ").

Always with Detmold, a conflict, which will be solved quickly, bursts with the eccentric poet Christian Dietrich Grabbe. Albert Lortzing had composed for Grabbe the incidental music of his single drama. He and his wife occupies respectively the roles of Don Juan and of Donna Anna and a newspaper of Frankfurt made extremely appear an anonymous criticism, even excessively flattering which also made the praise of the part of a brilliant author (" sharps genialen Dichters "). Critical emanating from " the génial" author; itself. He was in fact enough running, at the time, to make his own publicity via a criticism of this kind.

The November 3rd 1833, Albert Lortzing makes his beginnings with the municipal theater of Leipzig, where his/her parents exerted already like members of the troop of Friedrich Sebald Ringelhardt . There, it joined the artists of the " group; Tunnel unter der Pleisse ". In 1834, to Leipzig, it adheres to the cabin freemason Balduin zur Linde . With Leipzig, it appears extremely appreciated and it shines particularly in the comedies of Johann Nestroy. However, certain leaning for the improvisation and its recurring deviations compared to the text approved by the " police force of the theater " he posed however several problems with the latter. It is also the case with its first comic operas, which do not have the easy life under the Censure of Leipzig. The opera Zar und Zimmermann is created the December 22nd 1837 with Leipzig: the type-setter himself interprets the role of Peter Iwanow . But this representation is not a triumph: it will be necessary to await that of Berlin, in 1839, so that work carries out a notable opening. Nowadays, translated into English, French, Danish, Swedish, Dutch and even into Russian, this part is regarded as one of most important of the comic opera German.

In 1844, Albert Lortzing is named Choirmaster ( Kapellmeister ) to the municipal theater of Leipzig but, in April 1845, it is made return for a futile pretext. Its dismissal causes the repeated protests of an impotent public. In the same way, an open letter signed by the near total of his/her colleagues will be opposed to the decision of the municipal council.

Of 1845 with 1847, Albert Lortzing is again Choirmaster, but he exerts this time at the Theater year der Wien . In 1848, symbolizing the increasing desire of freedom of its people (cf Revolution of Mars), it writes the music and the booklet of new a opera, Regina , whose name holds directly of his wife, and where it exploits the social conflicts but also the Phobie of the Suicide. Its last opera, Rolands Knappen (1849), makes the Satire of a military State.

In 1848, its contract is cancelled. It must then turn over on scene (with Gera or Lüneburg) to make remain its big family. But finally, it takes again Choirmaster service as a to the Friedrich-Wilhelmstädtischen Theater of Berlin.

Albert Lortzing dies out the morning of the January 21st 1851. With the burial of the actor and musician, in the second Sophien-Friedhof (in the center of Berlin), one finds in particular Giacomo Meyerbeer, Heinrich Dorn, Wilhelm Taubert and Carl Friedrich Rungenhagen. The comrades of theater of late decorated its coffin of the colors Black-Red-But (the current German flag), an association which was prohibited after 1848.

Selected works

Die Himmelfahrt Christi , oratorio (Münster, 1828)
Szenen aus Mozarts Leben (Münster 1832)
Der Weihnachtsabend (Münster, 1832)
Die beiden Schützen (Leipzig, 1837)
Zar und Zimmermann (Leipzig, 1837)
Hans Sachs (Leipzig, 1840)
Casanova (Leipzig, 1841)
Der Wildschütz (Leipzig, 1842)
Undine (Magdeburg, 1845)
Der Waffenschmied (Vienna, 1846)
Regina (" Freiheitsoper" , opera for freedom, composed in 1848 in Vienna, which was never represented the alive one of Albert Lortzing: it was it for the first time at Gelsenkirchen, in 1998)
Rolands Knappen oder Das ersehnte Glück (Leipzig, 1849, represented in version not-censured for the first time in 2005 with Freiberg.)
Die Opernprobe (Frankfurt, 1851)

Source

External bonds

Albert Lortzing

Random links: