ALBERT LORTZING

'Gustav Albert Lortzing' (October 23, 1801 - January 21, 1851) was a German composer.
Born in Berlin to parents who both were actors, at the age of 19 Lortzing began to play the role of youthful lover (''Jugendlicher Liebhaber'') at the theatres of Düsseldorf and Aachen, sometimes also singing in small tenor or baritone parts.
His first opera, ''Ali Pascha von Janina'', appeared in 1824, but his fame as a musician rests chiefly upon the two operas ''Der Wildschütz'' (1842) and ''Zar und Zimmermann'' (1837).
''Zar und Zimmermann'' was received with very little enthusiasm by the public of Leipzig. However, subsequent performances in Berlin produced a much more positive reaction. The opera was soon placed on all the stages of Germany, and is now regarded as one of the masterpieces of German comic opera. It was translated into English, French, Swedish, Danish, Dutch, Bohemian, Hungarian and Russian. The story is based around Tsar Peter I 'The Great' of Russia, who travelled to Germany, Holland and England disguised as a carpenter in order to gain first-hand knowledge he believed necessary for his country's economic progress, such as modern ship-building techniques.
''Der Wildschütz'' was based on a comedy by August von Kotzebue, and was a satire on the unintelligent and exaggerated admiration for the highest beauty in art expressed by the bourgeois gentilhomme.
Of his other operas it is only necessary to note ''Der Pole und sein Kind'', produced shortly after the Polish insurrection of 1831, and ''Undine'' (1845).
Lortzing was well known in Berlin and after his death, a memorial statue was erected in the Tiergarten in Berlin.

Contents

Selected works

Sources

External link

Selected works

★ ''Die Himmelfahrt Christi'' Oratorium (Münster 1828)

★ ''Der Pole und sein Kind'' (1831)

★ ''Szenen aus Mozarts Leben'' (Münster 1832)

★ ''Der Weihnachtsabend'' (Münster 1832)

★ ''Die beiden Schützen'' (Leipzig 1837)

★ ''Zar und Zimmermann'' (Leipzig 1837)

★ ''Hans Sachs'' (Leipzig 1840)

★ ''Casanova'' (Leipzig 1841)

★ ''Der Wildschütz'' (Leipzig 1842)

★ ''Undine'' (Magdeburg 1845)

★ ''Der Waffenschmied'' (Vienna 1846)

★ ''Regina'' (Vienna 1848)

★ ''Rolands Knappen oder Das ersehnte Glück'' (Leipzig 1849)

★ ''Die Opernprobe'' (Frankfurt 1851)

Sources

''This text has been adapted from the 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica.''

External link

★ George Overmeire's Albert Lortzing Website