Joseph Anton von Seeau

George Desmarées , 1755: double portrait of Elector Max III. Joseph of Bavaria and Count Johann Anton von Seeau

Count Joseph Anton von Seeau (born September 10, 1713 in Linz , † March 25, 1799 in Munich ) was court music director under the Bavarian Elector Max III. Joseph and Karl Theodor .

Live and act

Domestically and in the Austrian War of Succession (1740–1748) a colorful figure, he was appointed director of court music and spectacles in spring 1753 . As an entrepreneur he worked on his own profit and loss, generously supported by the Elector financially and personally. In doing so, he made a significant contribution to making the theater industry independent by separating it from the person of the sovereign.

In 1774 he commissioned Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart to set the opera La finta giardiniera to music. In 1776 he became a member of the Order of Illuminati and in 1781 of the Freemasons' Association in the Munich lodge "Theodor zum guten Rat". In 1777 he engaged the then 26-year-old Emanuel Schikaneder to play the role of Hamlet and to head his own theater company. In 1797 he turned down the actor Ferdinand Johann Baptist Eßlair on the grounds that there were no suitable costumes in the theater dressing room for the "long rascal".

Honors

1764 Grand Cross of the Order of St. Michael
1777 honorary member of the Bavarian Academy of Sciences

literature

Eckehart Nölle: The Wittelsbachers and the theater. In: Hans E. Valentin, Eckehart Nölle, Horst Stierhof: The Wittelsbachers and their artists in eight centuries. Süddeutscher Verlag, Munich 1980, ISBN 3-7991-6085-X .
Felix Joseph von Lipowsky : life and deeds of Maximilian Joseph III. in Upper and Lower Bavaria, also the Duke of Upper Palatinate, Count Palatine near the Rhine, the Holy Roman Empire Erztruchseß and Elector Prince, Landgrave of Leuchtenberg, vol. 3 . Publishing house Giel, Munich 1833.
Stephan Hörner : Seeau zu Mühlleuthen, Joseph Anton Johannes Adam Dismas Graf von. In: New German Biography (NDB). Volume 24, Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 2010, ISBN 978-3-428-11205-0 , p. 129 f. ( Digitized version ).

Individual evidence

^ Ludwig Eisenberg : Large biographical lexicon of the German stage in the XIX. Century . Verlag von Paul List , Leipzig 1903, p. 242, ( Textarchiv - Internet Archive )

personal data
SURNAME	Seeau, Joseph Anton von
ALTERNATIVE NAMES	Seeau, Joseph Antoni; Seeau zu Mühlleuthen, Joseph Anton Johannes Adam Dismas Graf von
BRIEF DESCRIPTION	Court music director under the Bavarian Elector Max III. Joseph and Karl Theodor
DATE OF BIRTH	September 10, 1713
PLACE OF BIRTH	Linz
DATE OF DEATH	March 25, 1799
Place of death	Munich

[1] Ludwig Eisenberg : Large biographical lexicon of the German stage in the XIX. Century . Verlag von Paul List , Leipzig 1903, p. 242, ( Textarchiv - Internet Archive )