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Setting the Stage: Drama, Libretti and the ‘Invention’ of Opera in Leipzig in the 1680s
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 19 July 2018
Abstract
The opera house in Leipzig opened its doors in 1693. Operas had been performed in central Germany for quite some time but they were primarily confined to courts. With the founding of the opera, Leipzig, home of an important trade fair, provided an additional musical attraction that could entertain merchants coming for the fair. While the year 1693 marks the beginning of regular opera performances in Leipzig, the preceding decades saw an increased interest in dramatic genres in the realms of both secular and sacred music. The connection between these dramatic works and the opera house are not just circumstantial. Some of the key players in the opera business in Leipzig were involved in these earlier pieces as well, especially the poet Paul Thymich, the first librettist for the Leipzig opera, who provided the majority of texts for the drammi per musica, Singspiels and sacred cantatas.
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Footnotes
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Markus Rathey, Yale University, New Haven, CT, USA; markus.rathey@yale.edu
References
1 See the official document issued by the court in Dresden, cited in Maul, Michael, Barockoper in Leipzig (1693–1720) (Freiburg, 2009), 207–208 Google Scholar.
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3 For an overview see Maul, Barockoper in Leipzig, 203–7.
4 Maul, Barockoper in Leipzig, 203–7.
5 See, for instance, the activities of Johann Velten’s theatre group, which performed plays with incidental music during the Leipzig trade fairs between 1683 and 1692, as discussed in Maul, Barockoper in Leipzig, 206.
6 See Wheatcroft, Andrew, The Enemy at the Gate: Habsburgs, Ottomans and the Battle for Europe (New York, 2008)Google Scholar.
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10 See Mattheson, Grundlage einer Ehrenpforte, 153.
11 [Paul Thymich], Als Der Durchlauchtigste/Großmächtigste Fürst und Herr/Herr Johann Georg der Dritte/Hertzog zu Sachsen/Jülich/Cleve und Berg … Chur-Fürst … Nach herrlich-erhaltener Victorie wider den Erb-Feind … zum ersten mahl das sehnende Leipzig mit Seiner … Gegenwart Gnädigst erfreuete/Wolten Ihrer Churfl. Durchl. mit einer Theatralischen Nacht-Music in tieffster Unterthänigkeit auffwarten die sämtlich alda Studierende (Leipzig, 1683); Universitäts- und Landesbibliothek Sachsen-Anhalt, ULB Halle: Pon Vc 5163, FK.
12 See Rathey, Markus, ‘Rehearsal for the Opera—Remarks on a Lost Composition by Johann Kuhnau from 1683’, Early Music 42 (2014), 414 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
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17 Leading composers of this genre include Andreas Hammerschmidt, Wolfgang Carl Briegel and Johann Rudolph Ahle; see the comprehensive study of seventeenth-century dialogues by Märker, Michael, Die protestantische Dialogkomposition in Deutschland zwischen Heinrich Schütz und Johann Sebastian Bach. Eine stilkritische Studie (Cologne, 1995)Google Scholar.
18 The term ‘concerto-aria cantata’ was introduced by Friedhelm Krummacher, Die Überlieferung der Choralbearbeitungen in der frühen evangelischen Kantate. Untersuchungen zum Handschriftenrepertoire evangelischer Figuralmusik im späten 17. und beginnenden 18. Jahrhundert, Berliner Studien zur Musikwissenschaft 10 (Berlin, 1965), 29–36; for a critical assessment of the term and its application to the repertoire in Dresden, see Frandsen, Mary, Crossing Confessional Boundaries. The Patronage of Italian Sacred Music in Seventeenth-Century Dresden (Oxford, 2006), 229–244 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
19 Cited in Rose, Leipzig Church Music from the Sherard Collection, xvii.
20 Cited in Rose, Leipzig Church Music from the Sherard Collection, xvii.
21 For Schelle’s chorale cantatas and his collaboration with Carpzov, see Rathey, Markus, ‘The Chorale Cantata in Leipzig: The Collaboration between Schelle and Carpzov in 1689–1690 and Bach’s Chorale Cantata Cycle’, Bach 43 (2012), 46–92 Google Scholar.
22 The sources for the three pieces listed here do not explicitly indicate that they were part of the cycle; the style of the pieces, however, closely conform to the description given by Thomasius. See also Wollny, Peter, ‘A Collection of Seventeenth-Century Music at the Bodleian Library’, Schütz-Jahrbuch 15 (1993), 89 Google Scholar. Only this third piece does not exist in a modern edition; the manuscript is preserved in D-B Mus., ms. 19784.
23 The hymn ‘Durch Adams Fall’ is one of the hymns suggested for the twelfth Sunday after Trinity in the Vopelius hymnal from 1682 that was used in Leipzig at this time; see Rose, Leipzig Church Music from the Sherard Collection, xvii.
24 The final chorus uses the second half of the gospel text (‘He has done all things well’) as a ritornello and combines it with a reminder what things God has done well in the past, present and future. While the text was written by Thymich, it might have been influenced by an interpretation of these words in a sermon by Heinrich Müller in his widely read sermon collection Evangelischer Herzensspiegel. The sermon for the Sunday after Christmas begins with a text that similarly repeats the line from the gospel and elaborates on God’s care in a chronological sequence; see the edition of Müller’s sermons, Evangelischer Herzensspiegel (Hamburg, 1864), 56.
25 Friedhelm Krummacher, Die Choralbearbeitung in der protestantischen Figuralmusik zwischen Praetorius und Bach, Kieler Schriften zur Musikwissenschaft 22 (Kassel, 1978), 272.
26 Bach will use a similar model for the opening movement of his chorale cantata Wer nur den lieben Gott läßt walten, BWV 93 (1724).
27 Schelle also uses the same form of chorale setting later in some of the movements of his chorale cantata cycle.
28 Text and translation quoted in Rose, Leipzig Church Music from the Sherard Collection, xxxiv.
29 Krieger, Johann Philipp, Auserlesene In denen Dreyen Sing-Spielen Flora Cecrops und Procris enthaltene Arien Auf hohes Ansinnen in die Noten gesetzt und zum Druck gegeben (Nürnberg 1690), 10 Google Scholar.
30 Some commentators, like Peter Wollny (‘A Collection of Seventeenth-Century Vocal Music at the Bodleian Library’, 89–98), suggest that only two of Schelle’s cantatas for the Thymich cycle survived; but the structural similarities between the Actus musicus and the other pieces from the cycle indicate that this piece was part of the cycle as well. The only difference is the lack of free poetry, which can be explained with the special circumstances around the celebration of Christmas in 1683 discussed above. And even if the Actus musicus should not be part of the 1683–84 cycle, it is another example for Schelle’s use of a musico-dramatic format and of extensive recitative sections.
31 For a more thorough discussion of the piece and its historical context, see Baselt, Bernd, ‘Der “Actus musicus auf Weyh-Nachten” des Leipziger Thomaskantors Johann Schelle’, Wissenschaftliche Zeitung der Martin-Luther-Universität Halle-Wittenberg, Gesellschafts- und Sprachwissenschaftliche Reihe 14 (1965), 331–344 Google Scholar; and from the same author, ‘Actus musicus und Historie um 1700 in Mitteldeutschland’, Hallesche Beiträge zur Musikwissenschaft, Ser. G1 (1968/8), 77–103; see also the short comments in Smither, Howard E., A History of the Oratorio 2: The Oratorio in the Baroque Era. Protestant Germany and England (Chapel Hill, 1977), 37 Google Scholar.
32 For a discussion, see Rathey, Markus, Johann Sebastian Bach’s Christmas Oratorio. Music, Theology, Culture (New York, 2016), 13–49 CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Rathey, , ‘Carnival and Sacred Drama. Schütz’s Christmas Historia and the Transformation of Christmas in the Second Half of the Seventeenth Century’, Early Music History 36 (2017), 159–191 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
33 See the excellent systematic overview of German arias during the seventeenth century in Krummacher, Friedhelm, ‘Die geistliche Aria in Norddeutschland und Skandinavien. Ein gattungsgeschichtlicher Versuch’, in Weltliches und Geistliches Lied des Barock. Studien zur Liedkultur in Deutschland und Skandinavien, ed. Dieter Lohmeier (Amsterdam, 1979), 229–264 Google Scholar; esp. the examples on 251 and 255.
34 Johann Gerhard, Postille das ist die Auslegung und Erklärung der sonntäglichen und vornehmsten Fest-Evangelien über das ganze Jahr … Nach den Original-Ausgaben von 1613 und 1616. Vermehrt durch die Zusätze der Ausgabe von 1663 (Berlin, 1870), 11–12.
35 See Rose, Leipzig Church Music from the Sherard Collection, x.
36 Cited in Rose, Leipzig Church Music from the Sherard Collection, xxviii, fn. 100.
37 Cited after Schabalina, Tatjana, ‘“Texte zur Music” in Sankt Petersburg. Neue Quellen zur Leipziger Musikgeschichte sowie zur Kompositions- und Aufführungstätigkeit Johann Sebastian Bachs’, Bach-Jahrbuch 94 (2008), 44 Google Scholar.
38 For a more detailed analysis of the libretto and its place in seventeenth-century bucolic literature, see Markus Rathey, ‘Die Geistliche Hirten-Freude. Eine Leipziger Weihnachtsmusik im Jahre 1685 und die Transformation weihnachtlicher Bukolik im späten 17. Jahrhundert’, Daphnis. Zeitschrift für Mittlere Deutsche Literatur und Kultur der Frühen Neuzeit (1400–1750) 40 (2011), 567–606.
39 Garber, Klaus, Locus amoenus und Locus terribilis. Bild und Funktion der Natur in der deutschen Schäfer- und Landlebendichtung des 17. Jahrhunderts (Cologne and Vienna, 1974), 22–26 Google Scholar; see also Varwig, Bettina, Histories of Heinrich Schütz (Cambridge, 2011), 60–71 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
40 See Rathey, ‘Die Geistliche Hirten-Freude’, 586–7; for the sonic representation of the locus terribilis in baroque poetry, see also Garber, Locus amoenus, 256.
41 For the concept of the Pastorelle as a ‘one-act opera’, see Torsten Fuchs, ‘Macht und Repräsentation am Hofe Augusts von Sachsen-Weissenfels und seiner Söhne. Überlegungen zur frühdeutschen Oper an “kleinen” Höfen’, Musik der Macht–Macht der Musik. Die Musik an den sächsisch-albertinischen Herzogshöfen Weissenfels, Zeitz und Merseburg, ed. Juliane Riepe (Schneverdingen, 2003), 66.
42 See Rathey, ‘Die Geistliche Hirten-Freude’, 576–7.
43 See Maul, Barockoper in Leipzig, 651–2, fn. 85; and Ruf, Wolfgang, ‘The Courts of Saxony-Weißenfels, Saxony-Merseburg, and Saxony-Zeitz’, in Music at German Courts, 1715–1760. Changing Artistic Priorities, ed. Samantha Owens, Barbara M. Reul and Janice B. Stockigt (Woodbridge, 2011), 247 Google Scholar; see also Schmiedecke, Adolf, ‘Aufführungen von Opern, Operetten, Serenaden und Kantaten am Zeitzer Fürstenhof’, Die Musikforschung 25 (1972), 169–170 Google Scholar.
44 Or maybe one year earlier, if the year does not refer to the Christmas feast of 1685 but rather to the actual performance year.
45 Wentzel, Johann Christoph, Der Gott=liebenden Seelen Wallfahrt zum Creutz und Grab Christi/ in einem geistl. SingeSpiel zu Vermehrung Christl. Andacht bey dem in der Collegien=Kirche zu Jena/auf den Char=Freytag dieses lauffenden 1693sten ErlösungsJahres angestellten Gottes=Dienstes eilfertigst verfaßet (Jena, 1693)Google Scholar.
46 Scheitler, Irmgard, ‘Geistliche Musikzensur in Hamburg 1710. Ein verhindertes Passions-Oratorium und sein problematisches Libretto’, Kirchenmusikalisches Jahrbuch 88 (2004), 55–72 Google Scholar.
47 The battle is also known as the ‘Battle of Buda’. For a description of the altercations between the Ottoman and Imperial armies, see Wheatcroft, The Enemy at the Gate, 201–24; see also Dávid, Géza and Fodor, Pál, eds., Ottomans, Hungarians, and Habsburgs in Central Europe. The Military Confines in the Era of Ottoman Conquest (Leiden, 2000)Google Scholar.
48 The population of Saxony was also well informed about the impact of the Saxon army during the battle of Ofen/Buda; see Ausführlicher Bericht/Was bey Denen Chur-Sächß. Völckern/als Sie den 6. Aprilis 1686. aus Dreßden auffgebrochen/und Bey den Hin-March in Ungarn/von Tage zu Tage passiret/Auch was seit der Belager- und Eroberung Ofen/Von Ihnen tendiret/Und auff Befehl täglich notiret und angemercket worden ([n.p.], 1686).
49 Christoph Gottsched, Johann, NöthigerVorrath zur Geschichte der deutschen Dramatischen Dichtkunst, oder Verzeichnis aller deutschen Trauer- Lust- und Singspiele, die im Druck erschienen, von 1450 bis zur Hälfte des jetzugen Jahrhunderts (Leipzig, 1757)Google Scholar; reprint (Hildesheim, 1970), 251.
50 See also Dubowy, Norbert, ‘Italienische Opern im mitteldeutschen Theater am Ende des 17. Jahrhunderts: Dresden und Leipzig’, in Barockes Musiktheater im mitteldeutschen Raum im 17. und 18. Jahrhundert, ed. Friedhelm Brusniak (Cologne, 1994), 38 Google Scholar.
51 Reuter, ‘Geschichte der deutschen Oper in Leipzig’, 1; Reuter’s comments on the piece are in part based on August Grenser’s manuscript Geschichte der Musik in Leipzig (Stadtgeschichtliches Museum Leipzig), an early nineteenth-century source with only limited accuracy. The students at St Nicholas’s school were otherwise not involved in larger scale musical performances and Grenser’s remarks have to be taken with a grain of salt. While the performing forces therefore must remain dubious, there is no question that the piece was performed in Leipzig, as the Prologue refers to the city.
52 See Maul, Barockoper in Leipzig, 205, fn. 12.
53 Other publications provided ample material for conversations about the military situation in Buda and Ofen as well, see for instance: Hungarisch-Türkische-Chronik. Das ist: Curieuse un[d] dabey kurzgefaßte Beschreibung alles desjeni. Curiöse Continuation, oder Fortsetzung Der HungarischTürkischen Chronick Darinnen die raresten und merkwürdigsten Begebenheiten Schlachten und Victorien der Christlichen Kayserl. Königl. Polnischen ReichsAlliirten und Venetianischen Armeen wider ihre abgesagte Feinde die Türken von Anno 1685. biß 1686. samt einem ausführlichen Bericht von Belager Bestürm und Eroberung der bißhero gewesnen Türkischen nun aber Christlichen HaubtStadt Ofen … enthalten (Nürnberg, Frankfurt, Leipzig, 1686).
54 Maul, Barockoper in Leipzig, 1126–7.
55 Erdmann Neumeister, De Poëtis Germanicis (1695), ed. and trans. by Franz Heiduk and Günter Merwald (Bern, 1978), 251.
56 For Kuhnau’s short-lived activity as opera composer, see Maul, Michael, ‘New Evidence on Thomaskantor Kuhnau’s Operatic Activities, or: Could Bach Have Been Allowed to Compose an Opera?’ Understanding Bach 4 (2009), 9–20 Google Scholar.
57 Maul, Barockoper in Leipzig, 620.
58 Another piece that should be mentioned in this context is David Trommer’s Drama ecclesiasticum ‘Geistliches Singspiel von der Verehelichung Isaacs und Rebeccas’ from 1691; neither the music nor the text have been preserved and it is impossible to discern how the piece fits into the development of dramatic music in Leipzig; see Schering, Musikgeschichte Leipzigs, 439; however, as a singspiel based on a biblical text it might stand in the tradition of Thymich’s and Knüpfer’s Hirten Freude from 1685.
59 See Rudin, Bärbel, ‘Zwischen den Messen in die Residenz. Das Theater- und Schaustellergewerbe in Dresden und Leipzig nach den Standgeldrechnungen (1679–1728)’, in Wanderbühne. Theaterkunst als fahrendes Gewerbe, ed. Bärbel Rudin (Berlin, 1988), 74–104 Google Scholar.
60 For a short biography of Glaser, see Maul, Barockoper in Leipzig, 224–5.