Nikolaus Graf von Seebach

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Robert Sterl : Nikolaus Graf Seebach (1912)

Nikolaus Graf von Seebach (born February 9, 1854 in Paris , † January 13, 1930 in Dresden ) was the Royal Saxon Chamberlain , Rittmeister , real Privy Councilor , General Director of the Royal Saxon Musical Band and from 1894 to 1919 Intendant of the Dresden Court Theater ( Semper Opera ).

Seebach came from the Thuringian Uradelsgeschlecht those of Seebach , which has been elevated to the rank of count. 1864 After attending the University of Leipzig , he entered service at the Dresden court.

A characteristic of his artistic directorship at the Dresden Semperoper is his commitment to the composer Richard Strauss . Four Strauss operas were premiered during the Seebach era : 1901 Feuersnot , 1905 Salome , 1909 Elektra and 1911 Der Rosenkavalier - all conducted by Ernst von Schuchs . Seebach ensured the premiere successes of the Strauss operas by cleverly distributing tickets: while the conservative Dresden audience was largely kept away from the premieres, art connoisseurs, Strauss friends and critics from abroad filled the house. Before the premiere of the Rosenkavalier , he requested changes to the text because he feared that courtly-aristocratic circles could feel snubbed by the figure of the Och von Lerchenau. In order not to endanger the premiere, Strauss relented and asked the librettist Hugo von Hofmannsthal to take the objections into account and to make the text “court-theater-friendly”.

Seebach ran the house according to commercial guidelines and ensured that even the Saxon royal family had to buy their free tickets and benefit events by replacing the loss of income.

In 1919 he said goodbye to the Dresden theaters. He was buried in the New Catholic Cemetery in Dresden in 1930 .

New Catholic Cemetery in Dresden, grave of Nikolaus Graf von Seebach

literature

Individual evidence

  1. a b Hella Bartnig: Between opera quarrels and premier frenzy . In: Richard Strauss in Dresden and the Schuch era . Dresdner Hefte No. 118, edited by the Dresdner Geschichtsverein eV, Dresden 2014, p. 28

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