Margaretha Susanna Kayser

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Margaretha Susanna Kayser (born March 21, 1690 in Hamburg , † 1774 in Stockholm ) was a German opera singer and director. She was considered one of the most famous sopranos of her time and was generally known under the name "Mme Kayser" or "Die Kayserin".

Life

Margaretha Susanna Kayser was the daughter of the Hamburg opera singer Johann Heinrich Vogel. She was trained at the Hamburg Opera on Gänsemarkt . In 1706 she married the Hamburg city musician Johann Kayser and moved with him to Brussels for two years. She made her operatic debut in Hamburg as Mirtenia in Antiochus and Stratonica by Christoph Graupner . It was so successful that the poet and librettist Johann Ulrich König dedicated a poem of praise to it. In 1709 she and her husband went to the court of Landgrave Ernst Ludwig von Hessen in Darmstadt , where she participated in Telemann's Brockes Passion in 1715 . This phase was interrupted by several stays in Hamburg. In September 1716 she was the first woman to take part in a church music in Hamburg Cathedral . In 1717 she sang the title role in Reinhard Keiser's opera The Magnanimous Tomyris at the Gänsemarkt Opera . In 1718 they moved permanently to Hamburg, where Margaretha sang in operas and oratorios. In 1721 she fell out with the opera management after canceling some appearances (possibly for health reasons). After a stay in Braunschweig, she worked in Copenhagen from 1721 to 1723 , where her husband was to organize opera performances in the palace theater on behalf of the Danish King Friedrich IV . Reinhard Keizer also joined this company. However, the opera troupe was fired in 1723 due to miscalculations and large debts, and the Kaysers returned to Hamburg. Johann Kayser was appointed director of the Hamburg Ratsmusik in 1725, where he organized concerts and oratorios in which his wife was the main singer. In 1729 he had to flee Hamburg because he had kidnapped the wife of a Danish officer. His last recorded stay after adventurous journeys that took him to the Russian Empire was in Darmstadt around 1767.

From 1724 to 1730 Margaretha Susanna Kayser sang several leading roles under the direction of Georg Philipp Telemann at the Gänsemarkt Opera, which she took over as director in 1729. She held this position until 1733 or 1737. Then she was active as a concert singer and in 1746 became a member of Pietro Mingotti's traveling opera troupe . Your last recorded performance was in August 1749 a citizen captain's music by Telemann. Presumably she died in Stockholm in 1774 . At the age of 65 she was still there as a Kungl. Hofsångerska (royal court singer) called.

Her children Sophie Amalia (* September 25, 1711 in Darmstadt; † May 12, 1747) and Ludwig Gerhard (* 1712) also worked as singers. Sometimes Margaretha performed together with her daughter. She married the composer Giovanni Verocai in 1731 or 1732 . Her second daughter Charlotte Christine (* around 1715) also married a composer, Francesco Darbés. She lived in Copenhagen.

Margaretha Susanna Kayser's range spanned more than two and a half octaves. Her repertoire included Cleopatra in Giulio Cesare by Georg Friedrich Händel , ten operas by Reinhard Keizer and 17 operas and prologues by Georg Philipp Telemann , including his Margaretha, Queen of Castile , in which her daughter also took part.

literature

Individual evidence

  1. ^ A b c Hans Joachim Marx:  Kayser, Margaretha Susanna. In: Grove Music Online (English; subscription required).
  2. ↑ Thomas Seedorf :  Kayser, Kayserin, Keizer, Margaretha Susanna. In: Ludwig Finscher (Hrsg.): The music in past and present . Second edition, personal section, volume 9 (Himmel - Kelz). Bärenreiter / Metzler, Kassel et al. 2003, ISBN 3-7618-1119-5  ( online edition , subscription required for full access).
  3. ↑ Biography on Quell'usignolo (French), accessed on August 6, 2014.
  4. ^ Hans Joachim Marx:  Kayser, Sophie Amalia. In: Grove Music Online (English; subscription required).
personal data
SURNAME Kayser, Margaretha Susanna
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Mme Kayser (stage name); The Kayserin (stage name); Kayser-Vogel, Margaretha Susanna
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German opera singer and director
DATE OF BIRTH March 21, 1690
PLACE OF BIRTH Hamburg
DATE OF DEATH 1774
Place of death Stockholm