Cordelia (opera)

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Opera dates
Title: Cordelia
Theater ticket, Vienna 1823

Theater ticket, Vienna 1823

Shape: "Lyric-tragic opera" in one act
Original language: German
Music: Conradin Kreutzer
Premiere: 1823
Place of premiere: Theater am Kärntnertor , Vienna
Place and time of the action: 1814
people
  • Cordelia
  • A child
  • Farmers, shepherds, hunters ( choir )

Cordelia is a "lyrical-tragic opera" in one act by Conradin Kreutzer , which was premiered in 1823 at the Vienna Kärntnertortheater , the seat of the court opera at the time . It was an extraordinary success due to its subject and musical structure and thanks to its first interpreter Wilhelmine Schröder .

Work history

The work was originally intended for another singer, and was from this also encouraged: Anna Milder , with the highly dramatic game of Leonore in Beethoven's Fidelio became famous soprano, was in Berlin in 1817 a success with the presentation of Athalia of Johann Nepomuk von Poißl won and here she met Kreutzer, who was on a concert tour, whom she, like other composers, asked for a short opera for her guest tours. Milder had read in the Tübinger Morgenblatt for educated classes the story about an alleged "true incident" from 1814, which she considered particularly suitable for adaptation as an opera libretto in the form of a monodrama (with choirs).

She commissioned the actor and writer Pius Alexander Wolff , who was successful with Goethe at the Hoftheater Weimar and presented it under the title Adele von Budoy , based on the authentic historical person, with the preparation of the text book . Kreutzer quickly completed the one-act work and made it available to Milder. However, she hesitated for a while to rehearse it and only dared to perform in this role on August 13, 1821 on a trip to Königsberg at the local city ​​theater , but then put the piece aside, although it is not known whether she would return it to Kreutzer for further disposal left.

Kreutzer was court conductor in Donaueschingen between 1818 and 1822 , but was unable to perform his work there. Only after he was able to celebrate an extraordinary success with his Libussa at the Vienna Kärntnertortheater in 1822 did he ask Prince Karl Egon II zu Fürstenberg to be dismissed from the service of the Prince-Fürstenberg and accepted a position as Kapellmeister at the Vienna Court Opera. In February 1823, 18-year-old Wilhelmine Schröder sang the main role of the new version of the monodrama specially developed for her by Kreutzer under the title Cordelia , and also played it in Lincke'schen Bad in Dresden and finally in Paris in 1830 . A number of other well-known sopranos appeared in the role in Vienna, Dresden, Munich, Amsterdam , Magdeburg and Berlin, among them in particular Amalie Schütz and Nanette Schechner . For the Odéon Theater in Paris there had already been an arrangement by the Viennese composer Hieronymus Payer on April 21, 1827 (under the title La Folle de Glaris , libretto by Thomas Sauvage ), which Kreutzer was even able to hear there. A German version of this arrangement as Die Errende in den Alpen was first performed in Aachen in 1829 .

Kreutzer prepared a print of the score of the work, which he expected to be a good success, but which then did not appear. In the end, only the overture and individual numbers of the opera appeared.

  • Important interpreters

  • Anna Milder-Hauptmann, client and singer of the Adele in Adele von Budoy, Königsberg 1821

  • Wilhelmine Schröder , the Cordelia premiered at the Vienna Court Opera in 1823

  • Amalie Schütz , the first Cordelia in Vienna and Amsterdam

Editions (libretto)

  • Adele from Budoy . Singspiel in one act. in: Pius Alexander Wolff, Dramatic Games , Duncker & Humblot , Berlin 1823, pp. 325–343 ( digitized version ).
  • Cordelia . Singspiel in one act. Libretto. [Vienna 1823] ( digitized version ).

literature

  • Richard Rossmayer: Konradin Kreutzer as a dramatic composer , dissertation Vienna 1928.
  • Jean Mongrédien: Les débuts parisiens de Wilhelmine Schröder-Devrient (1830-1831) . In: Axel Beer (Ed.): Festschrift Christoph-Hellmut Mahling on the occasion of his 65th birthday (= Mainz Studies in Musicology ). Tutzing 1997, pp. 935-946.
  • Till Gerrit Waidelich: "when the orchestra [...] is raging, and the singer is bored like a fury". - “Cordelia” (1823), Conradin Kreutzer's opera about “a true incident in 1814” for two prima donuts . In: Irina Hundt Ed .: From salon to barricade. Women of the Heine time (= Heine studies ). Metzler, Stuttgart 2002, ISBN 3-476-01842-3 , pp. 111-128.

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Anonymous: Story of an Unfortunate . In: Morgenblatt für educated stands , No. 246 ff., 14. – 16. October 1818 ( digitized version ).