Joseph Leoni

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Joseph Leoni (* around 1770 in Palermo ; † December 27, 1834 in Munich , actually Giuseppe Leoni ) was a Bavarian court singer and innkeeper on Lake Starnberg. The district of Leoni in the municipality of Berg am Starnberger See is named after him.

Life

Leoni was a son of the Italian opera singer Teresa Coppola Leoni. Since the 1760s she appeared in various Italian theaters, especially in the opera buffa , was engaged at the Copenhagen Opera House from 1768 to 1770 and in an Italian opera company at the court of Duke Karl Wilhelm Ferdinand von Braunschweig in the 1780s . Accompanied by his mother, Giuseppe Leoni came to Munich in 1788 and was included in the Bavarian court music as a singer (bass voice). In the same year he married the ballet dancer Maria Anna Schmaus (born April 18, 1765 in Mannheim; † May 15, 1824 in Munich), who was engaged at the Munich court theater.

While Maria Anna (also "Marianna") Leoni rose to the position of Principal Dancer at the Munich Court Theater and was acclaimed by critics around 1800 in choreographies by the ballet master Peter Crux , Joseph Leoni remained chaplain to court music, i.e. was mainly in the church music service active. Only one single solo appearance by Leoni on the opera stage is documented, namely in the opera The Brothers as Rivals ( I fratelli rivali ) by Peter von Winter on November 6, 1798 in Munich.

The Leoni couple lived in a property in Munich that was popularly known as the "Leonigarten". It was located on a ravelin of the former city fortifications in front of the Kosttor and was surrounded by a water surface, the "Leoniweiher", fed by city streams.

Carl August Lebschée : Old Canal Street at Leoni Weiher towards d. Pferdstrasse (originated from memory in 1863/64)

Leoni belonged to the circle of friends of the high Bavarian tax officer Franz von Krenner , for whom he also did various jobs. After Krenner's death, Leoni was able to use his estate to purchase a lake plot in the fishing village of Assenbuch on the east bank of Lake Starnberg. On this plot of land he built a small villa in the classicist style in 1824/25. After the death of his first wife Marianna, Leoni married the 35-year-old Rosina Oehler fromprüfung near Regensburg in 1825 and together with her ran an inn and guesthouse in the house on Lake Starnberg in the summer months from 1825, which soon enjoyed great popularity, especially in Munich artist circles. The prominent guests in "Leonihausen", as Joseph Leoni called his inn, included the actor Ferdinand Eßlair , the opera singer Clara Vespermann , the writers Moritz Gottlieb Saphir and Friedrich Bruckbräu, as well as numerous painters, including Wilhelm von Kaulbach , Peter von Cornelius and Friedrich Overbeck , Eugen Napoleon Neureuther and Carl Rottmann . Joseph Leoni died in Munich in 1834.

Adolf von Schaden : Leonihausen (1832)

His sister Fanny was married to the Italian tenor Antonio Brizzi , who achieved great fame at the Munich Opera.

Significance and aftermath

Over time, the name Leoni became synonymous with the old place name Assenbuch and replaced it in the 19th century. The Gasthaus Leoni can be seen as the nucleus of the bourgeois discovery of Lake Starnberg as a local recreation destination. One of the first Munich residents to settle in Leoni's neighborhood was the royal Bavarian building officer Ulrich Himbsel in 1827 , who later founded public steam shipping on Lake Starnberg and built the railway line from Munich to Starnberg. The Gasthaus Leoni was continued by Rosina Leoni until her death in 1861. In the following years it changed hands several times and had to give way to a hotel in 1893. In Munich, the place names “Leonigarten” and “Leoniweiher” remained for decades after the area was drained (1825) and the area between Herrnstrasse and today's Hildegardstrasse was developed. A garden tavern in Kanalstrasse was called “Zum Leonigarten” between 1840 and 1860.

Soon after his death, Joseph Leoni was often referred to in travel literature about Lake Starnberg as "Kammersänger" or "Hofopera singer", so his artistic rank was overstated. The rumor, which is not supported by any contemporary sources, that Leoni was killed by suicide should also be part of the legend about his person.

literature

  • Adolf von Schaden : The latest topographical-statistical-humorous description of the Würm- or Starnberger-See, its banks and interesting surroundings. Fleischmann, Munich 1832.
  • Gerhard Schober: Early villas and country houses on Lake Starnberg. Oreos, Waakirchen-Schaftlach 1998, ISBN 978-3-923657-53-7 .
  • Christian Lehmann : Joseph Leoni. An Italian at Lake Starnberg. Volk, Munich 2018, ISBN 978-3-86222-251-3 .
  • Wolfgang Görl: An artist in the shadow of his wife. (Book review) In: Süddeutsche Zeitung weekend edition from 8./9. December 2018, p. 80

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Friedrich Bruckbräu : After rain comes sunshine. A memory from my youth. In: Bavarian improved new people's calendar for the citizen and farmer on the leap year 1864. Munich 1864, p. 38.
  2. ^ Friedrich Bruckbräu : Two corpse seers: A painful memory. In: Bavarian improved new people's calendar for the citizen and farmer on the common year 1866. Munich 1866, pp. 17-18.
  3. ^ M. Siebert: Address book for Munich 1856 , p. 107.
  4. ↑ Richard Paulus : Starnberger See and Würmtal (= Bavarian hiking books , edited by Alexander Heilmeyer, first row, issue 6). Munich 1926, p. 52.
personal data
SURNAME Leoni, Joseph
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Leoni, Giuseppe
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Bavarian court singer and innkeeper on Lake Starnberg
DATE OF BIRTH around 1770
PLACE OF BIRTH Palermo
DATE OF DEATH December 27, 1834
Place of death Munich