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• Personalities
• Classical Era
• Opera

1751–1812, Austrian Emanuel Schikaneder spent his early years as a nomadic musician, until he encountered a travelling theatrical troupe in Augsburg. He married the director’s daughter and eventually took over the management of the troupe. However, Schikaneder was not just an opportunist with an eye for the boss’s daughter and the boss’s job. The eventual author of 50 ...

• Major Operas
• Classical Era
• Opera

‘The Magic Flute’ The librettist of Die Zauberflöte, Emanuel Schikaneder, Mozart’s old friend and fellow freemason, drew on an eclectic variety of sources, including a French novel, Sethos, Paul Wranitzky’s magic opera Oberon (1789) and the oriental fairy tale Lulu. In the bird catcher Papageno, Schikaneder created for himself a character that could exploit ...

• Major Operas
• Late Baroque
• Opera

The mid-1730s operas Orlando, Ariodante and Alcina represent the artistic peak of Handel’s operatic career. Their stories all originate in the epic poem Orlando Furioso by the playwright and poet Ariosto, who was born and bred at the Ferrara court in the late fifteenth century. Orlando portrays the destructive insanity of its title-hero, who ignores his destiny by ...

• Personalities
• Classical Era
• Opera

lifetime, failed to endure once that era was past. Introduction | Classical Era | Opera Major Operas | Les Danaïdes by Antonio Salieri | Classical Era Personalities | Emanuel Schikaneder | Classical Era | Opera Houses & Companies | Paris Opéra | High Romantic | Opera ...

• Personalities
• Early Romantic
• Opera

Fidelio. An Aborted Roman Opera In 1803, Beethoven got as far as writing the first scene of a grand opéra, Vestas Feuer, to a libretto by Emanuel Schikaneder (1751–1812), Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart’s (1756–91) collaborator on Die Zauberflöte (‘The Magic Flute’, 1791). But the project foundered on the incongruity between the ancient Roman setting and what the composer called ...

• Personalities
• Classical
• Classical Era
• Composer

when it was agreed that Mozart would be appointed Kapellmeister at St Stephen’s Cathedral on the death of the elderly incumbent. Two operas followed in the summer. Working with Emanuel Schikaneder, singer, actor, manager and librettist, he wrote Die Zauberflöte (‘The Magic Flute’) for a popular theatre in a Viennese suburb: given on 30 September, it ...