Genovefa Weber

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Genovefa Weber

Genovefa Weber , also Genovefa von Weber , née Genovefa Brenner (born January 2, 1764 in Oberdorf im Allgäu , † March 13, 1798 in Salzburg ) was a German opera singer and actress . She was the mother of the composer Carl Maria von Weber .

Life

Genovefa Brenner was baptized a Roman Catholic on January 2, 1764 in Oberdorf, today's Marktoberdorf . At that time, the castle in Oberdorf was the summer residence of Prince-Bishop of Augsburg Clemens Wenzeslaus of Saxony . Her father was the prince-bishop's court carpenter Marx (= Markus) Brenner, her mother Maria Victoria Hindelang. She was the fourth child in the family.

At the age of 21, on August 20, 1785, Genovefa Brenner was officially married to the 51-year-old Franz Anton von Weber (1734–1812) in the Schottenkirche in Vienna . It was Weber's second marriage, and from the first one he already had two daughters and two sons. The marriage with Genovefa Brenner resulted in three further children, of which the two younger ones died at an early age.

Franz Anton von Weber had been a civil servant in the service of the prince-bishopric of Hildesheim and then music director for a traveling theater company, later conductor at the prince-bishop's court in Eutin . He was a freemason . His brother Fridolin Weber the Elder, who died in 1785. Ä. was the father of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart's wife Constanze . Through this marriage, Genovefa Brenner became an aunt of Constanze Mozart.

Franz Anton von Weber had Genovefa Brenner during a visit to his sons from his first marriage, Fridolin the Elder. J. and Edmund, who were taught by Joseph Haydn in Vienna at the time , met in the summer of 1783. Genovefa was performing as a singer in Vienna at this time. The best witnesses were the court actors Joseph Lange and Vincenzo Righini , who was employed as Kapellmeister and singing teacher in Vienna from 1779 to 1788.

The newly married couple, together with their two sons from their first marriage, moved to Eutin at the end of the summer. On November 18 or 19, 1786, Genovefa's first son, the later famous Carl Maria von Weber, was born in Eutin . The life of his father and mother would later have a strong influence on his music. Later he also traveled a lot as a composer. Soon after the birth of Carl Maria von Weber, Genovefa Weber moved to Hamburg with her husband in 1787 , who founded his own traveling theater company in 1789 . Genovefa raised her son in this traveling theater setting. He was on stage for the first time when he was less than five years old. The family was constantly on the move with the children, including guest appearances in Meiningen in 1789 , in Nuremberg , Erlangen , Ansbach and Bayreuth from 1791 to 1794 , and in Hildburghausen , Rudolstadt and Weimar in 1794 . During this time the children Georg Friedrich Carl (* / † 1789) and Maria Adelheid Antonia (1797–1798) were born and died.

During the stay in Hildburghausen, Genovefa Weber fell seriously ill and the family was prevented from moving on. According to his autobiographical sketch , Carl Maria von Weber received his first regular piano lessons from Johann Peter Heuschkel (1773-1853) during this stay from 1796 .

In 1794, Genovefa Weber made her debut on June 16 with the role of Konstanze in Mozart's Abduction from the Seraglio in Weimar at the court theater directed by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe , where she appeared several times as a contracted singer in various roles. In a letter to Goethe from Rudolstadt on September 5, 1794, Franz Anton von Weber asked him for his wife's early release from her contract. During her employment there, “so much disorder and things were going on that do not allow us to linger there any longer.” Goethe complied with the request in his letter of reply of September 23, 1794.

Memorial for Genovefa Weber at the Sebastian Cemetery in Salzburg (data: left grave slab, below)

At the end of 1797 the Weber family moved to Salzburg, where Franz Anton von Weber got a job as Kapellmeister and theater director for a short time. He does not seem to have felt particularly comfortable there under the regime of Prince Archbishop Colloredo ; because on July 2nd, 1798 he wrote from there to Franz Kirms in Weimar: "Under the local hierarchy it is unbearable."

In Salzburg in 1798, Carl Maria von Weber acquired his first basic knowledge of counterpoint composition from Michael Haydn . Genovefa Weber did not live to see her son's first work, a series of fughettos for piano, which he wrote at the age of 13. She died of tuberculosis in Salzburg on March 13, 1798, at the age of only 34 . Her memorial is located there in the St. Sebastian cemetery in the artificial "family grave" of the Mozarts, built by Johann Evangelist Engl, together with Constanze von Nissen. Leopold Mozart is not buried there, he found his resting place in the commune vault (crypt 84) of the cemetery.

The Genoveva-Brenner-Weg in Marktoberdorf is named after her.

literature

  • Andrea Zinnecker: From church singer to mother composer. Lecture on the 200th anniversary of the death of Genovefa Brenner. In: Marktoberdorfer Heimatblätter. 1998, pp. 5-13.
  • Ernst Rocholl: The troubled years of the von Weber family. Stations in life of Genovefa von Weber, b. Brenner, and their son Carl Maria von Weber. In: Marktoberdorfer Heimatblätter. 1998, pp. 35-69.
  • Ernst Rocholl (compilation): Carl Maria von Weber and his mother Genovefa von Weber, b. Burner. Life stations. (Documentation for the exhibition on the occasion of the 200th year of death in 1998 of Weber's mother in Marktoberdorf, 1998). Ostallgäuer Buch- u. Offset printing company, Marktoberdorf 1999.
  • Catarina Carsten: “They say she has a voice”. The adventurous life of Genoveva Brenner - on the 200th anniversary of the artist's death on March 13th. In: Salzburger Nachrichten. Salzburg, Saturday, March 7, 1998, p. IV.
  • Martin Dömling: Genoveva Brenner, the mother of the Freischütz composer. In: Marktoberdorfer history book. Kempten 1992, pp. 216-219.
  • Karl Maria Pisarowitz: Genoveva von Weber-Brenner. In: Götz Frhr. von Pölnitz (Hrsg.): Life pictures from the Bavarian Swabia. Volume 6. Hueber, Munich 1958, pp. 422-445.
  • Friedrich Hefele: The ancestors of Karl Maria von Weber: new studies on the 100th anniversary of his death. Festschrift Carl M. von Weber (= Heimatblätter “Vom Bodensee zum Main”. 30). Müller, Karlsruhe 1926.
  • S. Geiser: Goethe and the mother Carl Maria von Weber. First publication of a theater contract between the Weimar Theater and Genovefa von Weber (1794), based on Goethe's handwriting. In: Schweizerische Musikzeitung, 97, 1957, pp. 177–180 (also contains a list of her roles there)
  • Bama Lutes Deal: The Origin and Performance History of Carl Maria von Weber's Das Waldmädchen (1800). Chapter 1: Carl Maria von Weber's musical influences, 1786–1800 (= Diss. Florida State Univ., College of Music) 2005, pp. 9–23 ( online )
  • Christoph Schwandt : Carl Maria von Weber in his time: a biography. Schott Music, Mainz 2014, ISBN 978-3-7957-0820-7 (also available as an e-book).

Web links

Commons : Genovefa Weber  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. Christoph Schwandt: Carl Maria von Weber in his time. Mainz 2014, p. 13.
  2. Christoph Schwandt: Carl Maria von Weber in his time. Mainz 2014, p. 17.
  3. Christoph Schwandt: Carl Maria von Weber in his time. Mainz 2014, p. 21.
  4. So after the departure of the soprano Luise von Rudorff from the theater in the spring of this year. She was the Duke's mistress, in 1798 she married Karl Ludwig Knebel , with bad repute .
  5. ^ Ernst Pasqué, Goethe's theater management in Weimar , 2nd volume. Leipzig 1863, p. 316.
  6. Rege jams handing letters to Goethe: Regestnummer 1/1046 . ora-web.swkk.de. Archived from the original on September 27, 2007. Retrieved May 19, 2013.
  7. ^ Ernst Pasqué, Goethe's theater management in Weimar , 2nd volume. Leipzig 1863, p. 22.