Freihaustheater

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Theater director Schikaneder as bird catcher Papageno in Mozart's Magic Flute
Relief image of Papageno (1937) at Papageno-Hof near the location of the former Freihausheater, Operngasse

The Freihaustheater or Theater auf der Wieden (usually called Wiedner Theater on the theater slips ) was a theater in the Freihaus complex in the Vienna suburb of Wieden from 1787 to 1801 . It owes its fame today to the world premiere of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart's Magic Flute on September 30, 1791, an opera that was performed a total of 223 times in this house.

history

The Freihaustheater was built in 1787. It was the second Viennese suburban theater after the Leopoldstädter Theater founded in 1781 . The theater stood diagonally on the area of ​​today's Operngasse between today's houses Operngasse 23 and 32.

The founder and first director was Christian Roßbach, who opened the Freihaustheater on October 14, 1787 with the permission of Prince Georg Adam von Starhemberg (owner of the Freihaus complex) and the approval of the Lower Austrian provincial government. Johann Friedel managed the house from 1788 to 1789 . In 1789 Emanuel Schikaneder became director, with whose name the Freihaustheater has been associated ever since. From 1790 to 1793 Josef von Bauernfeld and from 1799 to 1801 Bartholomäus Zitterbart were co-directors with Schikaneder.

One of the Kapellmeister at the Freihaustheater was Johannes Hummel, father of the composer Johann Nepomuk Hummel .

Schikaneder and Karl von Marinelli , the also very capable director of the Leopoldstadt theater , were in fierce competition for the theater-loving Viennese audience. So both were forced to create theater productions at a high level. This competition led, among other things, to the planning and creation of the opera Die Zauberflöte by Mozart, who was already well known at the time. Through Mozart's commitment, whom Schikaneder already knew from his guest appearances in Salzburg, the director hoped to be able to create advantages over the Leopoldstadt Theater. Another result of this competition was the inclusion of so-called magic operas , a new genre of pieces, in the program of the house, for example The Philosopher's Stone or The Magic Island and the Magic Flute .

The repertoire of the Freihaustheater is still well known today. There were performances from the field of opera, ballet (although the performance of ballets was reserved for court theaters), instrumental music and of course spoken pieces, many well-known but also less well-known works.

In 1798 Ludwig van Beethoven played one of his own piano concerts at the fortepiano as part of a large academy.

The stage in the Freihaus experienced a highlight from today's, but also then, point of view with the world premiere of the Magic Flute on September 30th, 1791. The text for the opera was written by the director Emanuel Schikaneder himself. Josepha, the eldest sister of Mozart's wife Constanze , sang the Queen of the Night in the premiere of the Magic Flute . Mozart himself conducted this premiere and Schikaneder played Papageno. The Magic Flute was already an extraordinary success at the Freihaustheater and has remained one of the most famous and successful operas to this day. The Mozart Fountain on Mozartplatz is reminiscent of the premiere in this theater.

The second most successful play of the Theater im Freihaus was Schikaneder's Tyroler Wastl , which was performed 118 times here.

Ultimately, Prince Starhemberg no longer wanted to extend the lease for the theater. On June 12, 1801, almost ten years after the premiere of the Magic Flute , the last performance took place in this theater, in which Schikaneder spoke from the stage to the audience:

Ground plan of the first floor and first rank from 1789. St. Pölten , Lower Austrian Provincial Archives
The way is not too far
The river isn't even wide
One jump and you're there!
Don't you say yes!

He had previously acquired a property on the Wien River in the same year where a new theater, the Theater an der Wien , was built in a very short time and now opened not far from the old Theater on the Wieden on June 13, 1801, just one day after the farewell performance at Freihaustheater, with his own opera "Alexander" (composed by Franz Teyber ) a new theater building and thus another chapter in Viennese theater history. The theater in the Freihaus was converted into rental apartments and later demolished.

Building

The plans for the theater on the Wieden came from the landscape architect Andreas Zach . The two-story building was 30 meters long and 15 meters wide (the details are in fathoms on the plans ). Its roof was covered with tiles and was higher than the ridge height of the Freihaus. Outwardly it was more like a barn than a theater.

The house had four gates. The main gate towards the inner city was number 1. Gate number 2 was on Bärenmühlgasse, number 3 on Schleifmühlgasse and gate number 4 led to Wiedner Hauptstrasse and the Naschmarkt, which was then located here. The two gates two and three were reserved for the gentlemen.

The interior of the house included, among other things, the podium, the orchestra room and the simply painted auditorium with first floor noble, first floor, noble gallery, the 2nd gallery and a total of 20 boxes. Between the first and second floor noble as well as “at the orchestra” there were “walls of wood and cloth”. Ignaz Castelli wrote: "On the stage on either side of the portal were two life-size figures, a knight with a dagger and a lady with a larva". The benches of the "noble gallery" and a large part of the "Parterre noble" were equipped with armrests and "red cloth". Overall, the Freihaustheater should have offered space for over 1000 spectators.

repertoire

Directors

  • Christian Roßbach (1787–1788)
  • Johann Friedel (March 24, 1788–1789)
  • Emanuel Schikaneder and Josef von Bauernfeld (July 19, 1790– January 10, 1793)
  • Emanuel Schikaneder (January 10, 1793–1799)
  • Emanuel Schikaneder and Bartholomäus Zitterbart (1799–1801)

Kapellmeister

Entrance fees

The entrance fees were initially between 7  kr. and 5  florins , but were often increased, especially under Schikaneder, who regularly suffered from lack of money. At the time the Theater auf der Wieden opened, the admission fee was:

  • Large box for eight people: 5fl.
  • Small box for 4 people: 2 fl. 30 kr.
  • First floor noble and gallery: 34 kr.
  • Second place (2nd floor): 17 kr.
  • Last place (entrance to the gallery): 7 kr.
  • Court box for 6 fl. 50kr.

literature

  • Otto Erich Deutsch : The Freihaustheater on the Wieden 1787-1801 . Vienna / Leipzig: Deutscher Verlag für Jugend und Volk 1937. 48 p. With 8 ills.
  • Else Spiesberger: The Freihaus. Zsolnay-Verlag, Vienna et al. 1980, ISBN 3-552-03236-3 ( Wiener Geschichtsbücher 25).
  • David Buch: Mozart and the Theater on the Wieden: New Attributions and Perspectives . In: Cambridge Opera Journal (1997), pp. 195-232.
  • David Buch: Three posthumous reports concerning Mozart in his late Viennese years . In: Eighteenth-Century Music (2005) 2/1, pp. 125–129.
  • Michael Lorenz : New research results on the theater on the Wieden and Emanuel Schikaneder. In: Viennese history sheets. 4, 2008, ISSN  0043-5317 , pp. 15-36. Online version (PDF; 828 kB)
  • Tadeusz Krzeszowiak: Freihaustheater in Vienna 1787–1801. Workplace of WA Mozart and E. Schikaneder. Collection of documents. Böhlau, Vienna et al. 2009, ISBN 978-3-205-77748-9 .
  • Michael Lorenz: Review of Krzeszowiak's book Freihaustheater in Wien: 1787-1801 , Newsletter of the Mozart Society of America , XIV / 1, p. 20f. Online version (PDF; 2.2 MB)
  • Andrea Harrandt, Christian Fastl: Freihaustheater on the Wieden. In: Oesterreichisches Musiklexikon . Online edition, Vienna 2002 ff., ISBN 3-7001-3077-5 ; Print edition: Volume 1, Verlag der Österreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, Vienna 2002, ISBN 3-7001-3043-0 .
  • Felix Czeike (Ed.): Freihaustheater. In:  Historisches Lexikon Wien . Volume 2, Kremayr & Scheriau, Vienna 1993, ISBN 3-218-00544-2 , p. 391 ( digitized version ).

Web links

Commons : Theater auf der Wieden  - Collection of pictures, videos and audio files

Coordinates: 48 ° 11 ′ 52 "  N , 16 ° 21 ′ 58"  E