Johanna Jachmann-Wagner
Encyclopedia
Mezzo-soprano
A mezzo-soprano is a type of classical female singing voice whose range lies between the soprano and the contralto singing voices, usually extending from the A below middle C to the A two octaves above...
singer, tragédienne in theatrical drama, and teacher of singing and theatrical performance who won great distinction in Europe during the third quarter of the 19th century. She was a niece of the composer Richard Wagner
Richard Wagner
Wilhelm Richard Wagner was a German composer, conductor, theatre director, philosopher, music theorist, poet, essayist and writer primarily known for his operas...
and was the original performer, and in some respects the inspiration, of the character of Elisabeth in Tannhäuser
Tannhäuser (opera)
Tannhäuser is an opera in three acts, music and text by Richard Wagner, based on the two German legends of Tannhäuser and the song contest at Wartburg...
. She was also the original intended performer of Brünnhild in Der Ring des Nibelungen
Der Ring des Nibelungen
Der Ring des Nibelungen is a cycle of four epic operas by the German composer Richard Wagner . The works are based loosely on characters from the Norse sagas and the Nibelungenlied...
, but in the event assumed other roles.
Early career
Johanna Wagner was born in SeelzeSeelze
Seelze is a town in the district of Hanover, in Lower Saxony, Germany. It is situated on the river Leine, approx. 10 km west of Hanover. Today Seelze mainly plays the role of a bedroom town for commuters working in Hanover.-Division of the town:...
, Hanover
Kingdom of Hanover
The Kingdom of Hanover was established in October 1814 by the Congress of Vienna, with the restoration of George III to his Hanoverian territories after the Napoleonic era. It succeeded the former Electorate of Brunswick-Lüneburg , and joined with 38 other sovereign states in the German...
. Johanna was one of three daughters of Albert Wagner (1799–1874) (eldest brother of Richard) and his wife Elise (1800–1864). From Seelze the family moved to Würzburg
Würzburg
Würzburg is a city in the region of Franconia which lies in the northern tip of Bavaria, Germany. Located at the Main River, it is the capital of the Regierungsbezirk Lower Franconia. The regional dialect is Franconian....
in 1830, where both parents worked in the Royal Bavarian Theatre, father being an actor, singer and stage-manager. She received piano lessons from her mother, a Roman Catholic, and sang duets with the Landgräfin of Hessen, who took singing lessons from her father. Richard Wagner visited in 1833 (while composing Die Feen
Die Feen
Die Feen is an opera in three acts by Richard Wagner. The German libretto was written by the composer after Carlo Gozzi's La donna serpente.Die Feen was Wagner's first completed opera, but remained unperformed in his lifetime...
) and often accompanied her singing Johann Carl Gottfried Loewe's ballad Edward. Johanna knew the young Marie Seebach
Marie Seebach
Marie Seebach was a German actress.She was born in Riga, Livonia, Russian Empire as the daughter of an actor, Wilhelm Friedrich Seebach . After appearing first at Nuremberg as Julie in Kean, she played soubrette parts at Lübeck, Danzig and Cassel...
(later wife of Wagnerian singer Albert Niemann
Albert Niemann (tenor)
Albert Wilhelm Karl Niemann was a leading German tenor opera singer especially associated with the operas of Richard Wagner...
), who attended the same confirmation class.
She showed aptitude for the stage as a child. Owing to poor health she went to stay with her aunt Christine Cley, a singer and mother of the Vienna actress Julia Rettich (1809–1866). In 1842 she accepted a contract as actress at Bernberg and Ballenstedt
Ballenstedt
Ballenstedt is a town in the Harz district, in the German state of Saxony-Anhalt. It is situated at the northern rim of the Harz mountain range, about 10 km southeast of Quedlinburg. The municipality includes the villages of Badeborn and Oppenrode...
, and her father undertook her training as a singer. She first appeared as a page in the new opera Les Huguenots
Les Huguenots
Les Huguenots is a French opera by Giacomo Meyerbeer, one of the most popular and spectacular examples of the style of grand opera. The opera is in five acts and premiered in Paris in 1836. The libretto was written by Eugène Scribe and Émile Deschamps....
at Ballenstedt, and began to give concerts with much success. In Bernberg she gained favourable notice by standing in to sing the role of the Queen in a brilliant performance attended by the Duke and Duchess.
Dr Lorentz moved his company to Halle
Halle, Saxony-Anhalt
Halle is the largest city in the German state of Saxony-Anhalt. It is also called Halle an der Saale in order to distinguish it from the town of Halle in North Rhine-Westphalia...
, and Johanna studied Friedrich Schiller
Friedrich Schiller
Johann Christoph Friedrich von Schiller was a German poet, philosopher, historian, and playwright. During the last seventeen years of his life , Schiller struck up a productive, if complicated, friendship with already famous and influential Johann Wolfgang von Goethe...
roles for the theatre, and operatic roles with her father in Daniel Auber
Daniel Auber
Daniel François Esprit Auber was a French composer.-Biography:The son of a Paris print-seller, Auber was born in Caen in Normandy. Though his father expected him to continue in the print-selling business, he also allowed his son to learn how to play several musical instruments...
's Maurer und Schlosser, Albert Lortzing
Albert Lortzing
Gustav Albert Lortzing was a German composer, actor and singer. He is considered to be the main representative of the German Spieloper, a form similar to the French opéra comique, which grew out of the Singspiel.-Biography:Lortzing was born in Berlin to Johann Gottlieb Lortzing and Charlotte Sophie...
's Wildschütz and in Don Giovanni
Don Giovanni
Don Giovanni is an opera in two acts with music by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and with an Italian libretto by Lorenzo Da Ponte. It was premiered by the Prague Italian opera at the Teatro di Praga on October 29, 1787...
. Her first important operatic appearance was as Catherina Cornaro in Fromental Halévy
Fromental Halévy
Jacques-François-Fromental-Élie Halévy, usually known as Fromental Halévy , was a French composer. He is known today largely for his opera La Juive.-Early career:...
's La reine de Chypre
La reine de Chypre
La reine de Chypre is an 1841 grand opera composed by Fromental Halévy to a libretto by Jules-Henri Vernoy de Saint-Georges.-Background:...
. In May 1844 Richard Wagner arranged an audition for her at the Dresden Royal Opera, where she gave guest appearances in these operas and received a three-year contract, being engaged as a Royal Saxon Kämmersängerin before the age of 18.
Dresden and Paris
At the time of her arrival in 1844 Dresden had recently witnessed the world premieres of RienziRienzi
Rienzi, der Letzte der Tribunen is an early opera by Richard Wagner in five acts, with the libretto written by the composer after Bulwer-Lytton's novel of the same name . The title is commonly shortened to Rienzi...
(1842) and Der fliegende Holländer
The Flying Dutchman (opera)
Der fliegende Holländer is an opera, with music and libretto by Richard Wagner.Wagner claimed in his 1870 autobiography Mein Leben that he had been inspired to write "The Flying Dutchman" following a stormy sea crossing he made from Riga to London in July and August 1839, but in his 1843...
(1843), and the singers Josef Tichatschek
Josef Tichatschek
Josef Aloys Tichatschek , originally Tichaček, was a Bohemian opera singer highly regarded by Richard Wagner...
(tenor, the first Rienzi)), the baritone Anton Mitterwurzer
Anton Mitterwurzer
Anton Mitterwurzer was a German opera singer, a noted baritone interpreter of the works of Gluck, Marschner, and Wagner.-Biography:He was born at Sterzing in the Tyrol, made his first theatrical appearance at Innsbruck, and at twenty-one was engaged at Dresden, where he stayed for thirty years,...
, bass Georg Wilhelm Dettmer (original Stefano Colonna
Rienzi
Rienzi, der Letzte der Tribunen is an early opera by Richard Wagner in five acts, with the libretto written by the composer after Bulwer-Lytton's novel of the same name . The title is commonly shortened to Rienzi...
), and the celebrated dramatic soprano Wilhelmine Schröder-Devrient
Wilhelmine Schröder-Devrient
Wilhelmine Schröder-Devrient, born Wilhelmine Schröder , was a German operatic soprano. As a singer she combined a rare quality of tone with dramatic intensity of expression, which was as remarkable on the concert platform as in opera.- Biography :Schröder was born in Hamburg, the daughter of the...
(the original Adriano
Rienzi
Rienzi, der Letzte der Tribunen is an early opera by Richard Wagner in five acts, with the libretto written by the composer after Bulwer-Lytton's novel of the same name . The title is commonly shortened to Rienzi...
and Senta
The Flying Dutchman (opera)
Der fliegende Holländer is an opera, with music and libretto by Richard Wagner.Wagner claimed in his 1870 autobiography Mein Leben that he had been inspired to write "The Flying Dutchman" following a stormy sea crossing he made from Riga to London in July and August 1839, but in his 1843...
) were the principals with whom she worked. The latter (whom Johanna had first met in Ballenstedt) was an especially inspiring example, and Tichatschek became a lifelong friend. She also befriended Ferdinand Heine
Ferdinand Heine
Ferdinand Heine was a German ornithologist and collector.Heine had one of the largest private collection of birds in the nineteenth century. This is now housed at the Heineanum Halberstadt Museum in Halberstadt. Jean Cabanis wrote about the collection in Museum Heineanum. Verzeichniss der...
, an actor with great knowledge of theatrical costume, and Countess Helene Kaminska, who made several portraits of her.
Johanna studied several roles with her uncle, especially Irene in Rienzi, and as her family moved to the city they became part of Richard Wagner's circle there. As he was now composing Tannhäuser, following his new musical conceptions, Johanna and Tichatschek sang the music of Elisabeth and Tannhäuser for him as it evolved. He had intended to premiere the opera to mark her 19th birthday, 13 October 1845, but she was ill, which forced its postponement for six days. The first performance, on 19 October, a six-hour staging beside Devrient as Venus, and with Dettmer and Mitterwurzer, was followed by a shortened version, with altogether eight repeats by the following January.
In 1846, after singing excerpts from Christoph Willibald Gluck
Christoph Willibald Gluck
Christoph Willibald Ritter von Gluck was an opera composer of the early classical period. After many years at the Habsburg court at Vienna, Gluck brought about the practical reform of opera's dramaturgical practices that many intellectuals had been campaigning for over the years...
's Orpheus
Orfeo ed Euridice
Orfeo ed Euridice is an opera composed by Christoph Willibald Gluck based on the myth of Orpheus, set to a libretto by Ranieri de' Calzabigi. It belongs to the genre of the azione teatrale, meaning an opera on a mythological subject with choruses and dancing...
in concert, with financial support from the King of Saxony she left for Paris to study with Manuel Patricio Rodríguez García
Manuel Patricio Rodríguez García
Manuel Patricio Rodríguez García , was a Spanish singer, music educator, and vocal pedagogue.-Biography:García was born on 17 March 1805 in the town of Zafra in Badajoz Province, Spain. His father was singer and teacher Manuel del Pópulo Vicente Rodriguez García...
(and/or with Pauline García-Viardot
Pauline Garcia-Viardot
Pauline Viardot [née García] was a leading nineteenth-century French mezzo-soprano, pedagogue and composer of Spanish descent.-Name:Her name appears in various forms. When it is not simply "Pauline Viardot", it most commonly appears in association with her maiden name García or the unaccented...
) for whom she sang Agathe's first aria in Der Freischütz
Der Freischütz
Der Freischütz is an opera in three acts by Carl Maria von Weber with a libretto by Friedrich Kind. It premiered on 18 June 1821 at the Schauspielhaus Berlin...
to audition. After hearing Giulia Grisi
Giulia Grisi
Giulia Grisi, also known as Madame De Candia was an Italian opera singer...
as Norma
Norma (opera)
Norma is a tragedia lirica or opera in two acts by Vincenzo Bellini with libretto by Felice Romani after Norma, ossia L'infanticidio by Alexandre Soumet. First produced at La Scala on December 26, 1831, it is generally regarded as an example of the supreme height of the bel canto tradition...
she studied the role with him (in Italian), and also Valentine in Les Huguenots
Les Huguenots
Les Huguenots is a French opera by Giacomo Meyerbeer, one of the most popular and spectacular examples of the style of grand opera. The opera is in five acts and premiered in Paris in 1836. The libretto was written by Eugène Scribe and Émile Deschamps....
(in French), though his attempt to teach her Rosina
The Barber of Seville
The Barber of Seville, or The Futile Precaution is an opera buffa in two acts by Gioachino Rossini with a libretto by Cesare Sterbini. The libretto was based on Pierre Beaumarchais's comedy Le Barbier de Séville , which was originally an opéra comique, or a mixture of spoken play with music...
met with less success. He suggested she should sing in Paris: she declined, but while there she saw Frédéric Chopin
Frédéric Chopin
Frédéric François Chopin was a Polish composer and virtuoso pianist. He is considered one of the great masters of Romantic music and has been called "the poet of the piano"....
play, saw Rachel
Rachel (actress)
Elisabeth "Eliza, or Élisa" Rachel Félix , better known only as Mademoiselle Rachel , was a French actress....
as Jean Racine
Jean Racine
Jean Racine , baptismal name Jean-Baptiste Racine , was a French dramatist, one of the "Big Three" of 17th-century France , and one of the most important literary figures in the Western tradition...
's Phèdre
Phèdre
Phèdre is a dramatic tragedy in five acts written in alexandrine verse by Jean Racine, first performed in 1677.-Composition and premiere:...
, and Haberneck conduct Ludwig van Beethoven
Ludwig van Beethoven
Ludwig van Beethoven was a German composer and pianist. A crucial figure in the transition between the Classical and Romantic eras in Western art music, he remains one of the most famous and influential composers of all time.Born in Bonn, then the capital of the Electorate of Cologne and part of...
's 7th Symphony. At the end of the year she returned to Dresden, to perform Norma and Valentine, under a new contract.
Hamburg, Berlin and touring
The Dresden revolution of 1848-49, which resulted in Richard Wagner's exile and Mme Schroder-Devrient's temporary imprisonment, found Johanna singing in HamburgHamburg
-History:The first historic name for the city was, according to Claudius Ptolemy's reports, Treva.But the city takes its modern name, Hamburg, from the first permanent building on the site, a castle whose construction was ordered by the Emperor Charlemagne in AD 808...
, as Valentine
Les Huguenots
Les Huguenots is a French opera by Giacomo Meyerbeer, one of the most popular and spectacular examples of the style of grand opera. The opera is in five acts and premiered in Paris in 1836. The libretto was written by Eugène Scribe and Émile Deschamps....
and Leonore
Fidelio
Fidelio is a German opera in two acts by Ludwig van Beethoven. It is Beethoven's only opera. The German libretto is by Joseph Sonnleithner from the French of Jean-Nicolas Bouilly which had been used for the 1798 opera Léonore, ou L’amour conjugal by Pierre Gaveaux, and for the 1804 opera Leonora...
. Dresden vacillated so she accepted a contract at Hamburg where, as Fides in Le prophète
Le prophète
Le prophète is an opera in five acts by Giacomo Meyerbeer. The French-language libretto was by Eugène Scribe.-Performance history:...
she attracted Giacomo Meyerbeer
Giacomo Meyerbeer
Giacomo Meyerbeer was a noted German opera composer, and the first great exponent of "grand opera." At his peak in the 1830s and 1840s, he was the most famous and successful composer of opera in Europe, yet he is rarely performed today.-Early years:He was born to a Jewish family in Tasdorf , near...
's attention. He brought her to Berlin State Opera
Berlin State Opera
The Staatsoper Unter den Linden is a German opera company. Its permanent home is the opera house on the Unter den Linden boulevard in the Mitte district of Berlin, which also hosts the Staatskapelle Berlin orchestra.-Early years:...
to sing it for her (May 1851) debut there, which she followed (June 1851) with Donna Anna
Don Giovanni
Don Giovanni is an opera in two acts with music by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and with an Italian libretto by Lorenzo Da Ponte. It was premiered by the Prague Italian opera at the Teatro di Praga on October 29, 1787...
, Reiza
Oberon
Oberon is a legendary king of the fairies.Oberon may also refer to:-People:* Merle Oberon , British actress* Oberon Zell-Ravenheart , Neopagan activist-Media and entertainment:* Oberon...
and a repeat of Fides. She also sang Fides in Vienna
Vienna
Vienna is the capital and largest city of the Republic of Austria and one of the nine states of Austria. Vienna is Austria's primary city, with a population of about 1.723 million , and is by far the largest city in Austria, as well as its cultural, economic, and political centre...
in 1850. Her Hamburg obligations discharged, she brought her famous interpretation of Bellini's Romeo
I Capuleti e i Montecchi
I Capuleti e i Montecchi is an Italian opera in two acts by Vincenzo Bellini.The libretto by Felice Romani was a reworking of the story of Romeo and Juliet for an opera by Nicola Vaccai called Giulietta e Romeo. This was based on Italian sources rather than taken directly from Shakespeare...
to Berlin with great success.
In May 1852 Johanna accepted an invitation from Benjamin Lumley
Benjamin Lumley
Benjamin Lumley, opera manager and solicitor, was born Benjamin Levy, in 1811, the son of a Jewish merchant Louis Levy, and died 17 March 1875 in London.-Beginnings at His Majesty's Theatre:...
to sing at Her Majesty's Theatre
Her Majesty's Theatre
Her Majesty's Theatre is a West End theatre, in Haymarket, City of Westminster, London. The present building was designed by Charles J. Phipps and was constructed in 1897 for actor-manager Herbert Beerbohm Tree, who established the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art at the theatre...
in London. However the Covent Garden
Royal Opera House
The Royal Opera House is an opera house and major performing arts venue in Covent Garden, central London. The large building is often referred to as simply "Covent Garden", after a previous use of the site of the opera house's original construction in 1732. It is the home of The Royal Opera, The...
management (Frederick Gye
Frederick Gye
Frederick Gye was an English businessman and opera manager who for many years ran what is now the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden.-Life:...
) sought to tempt her away, an offer which Albert Wagner (always Johanna's agent) accepted. In the ensuing row (and lawsuit) Albert offended H.F. Chorley
Henry Fothergill Chorley
Henry Fothergill Chorley was an English literary, art and music critic and editor. He was also an author of novels, drama, poetry and lyrics....
and others with the widely-quoted remark that 'England could only be valued for her money', and Johanna went home without singing at all. However she returned in June and July 1856 (to Her Majesty's) and appeared repeatedly in her best roles, beginning (14 June) as Romeo, and then in Lucrezia Borgia
Lucrezia Borgia
Lucrezia Borgia [luˈkrɛtsia ˈbɔrʤa] was the illegitimate daughter of Rodrigo Borgia, the powerful Renaissance Valencian who later became Pope Alexander VI, and Vannozza dei Cattanei. Her brothers included Cesare Borgia, Giovanni Borgia, and Gioffre Borgia...
, Christoph Willibald Gluck
Christoph Willibald Gluck
Christoph Willibald Ritter von Gluck was an opera composer of the early classical period. After many years at the Habsburg court at Vienna, Gluck brought about the practical reform of opera's dramaturgical practices that many intellectuals had been campaigning for over the years...
's Orfeo ed Euridice
Orfeo ed Euridice
Orfeo ed Euridice is an opera composed by Christoph Willibald Gluck based on the myth of Orpheus, set to a libretto by Ranieri de' Calzabigi. It belongs to the genre of the azione teatrale, meaning an opera on a mythological subject with choruses and dancing...
and Gioachino Rossini's Tancredi
Tancredi
Tancredi is a melodramma eroico in two acts by composer Gioachino Rossini and librettist Gaetano Rossi, based on Voltaire's play Tancrède...
. She gave a Court concert, after which Queen Victoria
Victoria of the United Kingdom
Victoria was the monarch of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland from 20 June 1837 until her death. From 1 May 1876, she used the additional title of Empress of India....
broke her rule and attended this theatre to hear her on stage.
In 1856 she sang in Weimar
Weimar
Weimar is a city in Germany famous for its cultural heritage. It is located in the federal state of Thuringia , north of the Thüringer Wald, east of Erfurt, and southwest of Halle and Leipzig. Its current population is approximately 65,000. The oldest record of the city dates from the year 899...
under Franz Liszt
Franz Liszt
Franz Liszt ; ), was a 19th-century Hungarian composer, pianist, conductor, and teacher.Liszt became renowned in Europe during the nineteenth century for his virtuosic skill as a pianist. He was said by his contemporaries to have been the most technically advanced pianist of his age...
's direction, as Orfeo, Romeo, Lucrezia Borgia, in Gluck's Iphigenie in Tauride, and in concert. After a Romeo she was given a standing ovation by the orchestra and crowned with a laurel wreath, and she had to give repeat performances for the Grand Duke and Duchess. Liszt, whose interest was not only musical, presented her with his portrait. Throughout the 1850s she sang repeatedly at Cologne
Cologne
Cologne is Germany's fourth-largest city , and is the largest city both in the Germany Federal State of North Rhine-Westphalia and within the Rhine-Ruhr Metropolitan Area, one of the major European metropolitan areas with more than ten million inhabitants.Cologne is located on both sides of the...
, and at Szczecin
Szczecin
Szczecin , is the capital city of the West Pomeranian Voivodeship in Poland. It is the country's seventh-largest city and the largest seaport in Poland on the Baltic Sea. As of June 2009 the population was 406,427....
. In 1858 she made a debut at Leipzig
Leipzig
Leipzig Leipzig has always been a trade city, situated during the time of the Holy Roman Empire at the intersection of the Via Regia and Via Imperii, two important trade routes. At one time, Leipzig was one of the major European centres of learning and culture in fields such as music and publishing...
, as Lucrezia, and performed Romeo, Tancredi, Tannhäuser and Orfeo, before going on to Dresden
Dresden
Dresden is the capital city of the Free State of Saxony in Germany. It is situated in a valley on the River Elbe, near the Czech border. The Dresden conurbation is part of the Saxon Triangle metropolitan area....
, where she rejoiced to sing Tannhäuser again with Tichatschek and Mitterwurzer.
Wagner, not then on friendly terms with Johanna, had intended her for his Brünnhild in early plans for the Nibelungen operas, but it was in Heinrich Dorn
Heinrich Dorn
Heinrich Ludwig Egmont Dorn was a German conductor, composer, and journalist. He was born in Königsberg , where he studied piano, singing, and composition. Later, he studied in Berlin with Ludwig Berger, Bernhard Klein, and Carl Friedrich Zelter. His first opera, Rolands Knappen, was produced in...
's opera Die Nibelungen at Berlin, during Richard's exile, that she performed the role of this name. She also made some effect in the little-known Macbeth of Wilhelm Taubert
Wilhelm Taubert
Carl Gottfried Wilhelm Taubert was a German pianist, composer, and conductor.Taubert studied under Ludwig Berger and Bernhard Klein . In 1831 he became assistant conductor and accompanist for Berlin court concerts...
, as Lady Macbeth. However, it was in the Berlin premieres of Tannhäuser, in January 1856, that she rediscovered her place in Richard's pantheon, with such success that permission was also granted for the (belated) first Berlin production of Lohengrin
Lohengrin (opera)
Lohengrin is a romantic opera in three acts composed and written by Richard Wagner, first performed in 1850. The story of the eponymous character is taken from medieval German romance, notably the Parzival of Wolfram von Eschenbach and its sequel, Lohengrin, written by a different author, itself...
in 1859, with Johanna as Ortrud. She also trained Fraulein Wippern as Elsa. For these productions Botho von Hülsen was the manager, Albert Wagner the stage-manager and (in Lohengrin) Wilhelm Taubert the conductor.
A new career
In May 1859 Johanna married Alfred Jachmann of KönigsbergKönigsberg
Königsberg was the capital of East Prussia from the Late Middle Ages until 1945 as well as the northernmost and easternmost German city with 286,666 inhabitants . Due to the multicultural society in and around the city, there are several local names for it...
, diplomat, of an eminent Prussia
Prussia
Prussia was a German kingdom and historic state originating out of the Duchy of Prussia and the Margraviate of Brandenburg. For centuries, the House of Hohenzollern ruled Prussia, successfully expanding its size by way of an unusually well-organized and effective army. Prussia shaped the history...
n family whom she had assisted financially at the collapse of their interests in 1858. Her first daughter was born in March 1860. After a very busy and triumphant tour of German towns in 1860 and a visit to Warsaw
Warsaw
Warsaw is the capital and largest city of Poland. It is located on the Vistula River, roughly from the Baltic Sea and from the Carpathian Mountains. Its population in 2010 was estimated at 1,716,855 residents with a greater metropolitan area of 2,631,902 residents, making Warsaw the 10th most...
in rebellion (where she was first hissed, and then sang under police protection), she decided to make her farewell from the opera stage and to continue her career as a tragédienne. Her contract renegotiated, she studied the role of Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe was a German writer, pictorial artist, biologist, theoretical physicist, and polymath. He is considered the supreme genius of modern German literature. His works span the fields of poetry, drama, prose, philosophy, and science. His Faust has been called the greatest long...
's Iphigenie
Iphigénie
Iphigénie is a dramatic tragedy in five acts written in alexandrine verse by the French playwright Jean Racine. It was first performed in the Orangerie in Versailles on August 18th 1674 as part of the fifth of the royal Divertissements de Versailles of Louis XIV to celebrate the conquest of...
under the guidance of Frau Auguste Crelinger, the actress whose mantle she was to inherit, and performed it in September 1861 at the Royal Theatre, Berlin for Queen Augusta's birthday, and soon afterwards was Friedrich Schiller
Friedrich Schiller
Johann Christoph Friedrich von Schiller was a German poet, philosopher, historian, and playwright. During the last seventeen years of his life , Schiller struck up a productive, if complicated, friendship with already famous and influential Johann Wolfgang von Goethe...
's Mary Stuart, and Countess Orsina.
She now took the name Johanna Jachmann-Wagner for her new career. She was soon compared to Fanny Januschek, the dramatic power of her performances giving hope of a rebirth of the German classic drama. Having sung at the Coronation concert at Königsberg, her operatic farewell was as Orfeo in December 1861, but she repeated it at a centenary performance in October 1862. She did however continue to sing in various German towns through the 1860s, notably in concert and recital, in the performance of lieder. She made a return visit to Würzburg in 1866. From 1861-69 she lived part of each year at Berlin and part at Trutenau. In 1868 and 1869 she gave the first performances of two dramas, Phädra and Catharina Voisin by 'Georg Conrad', the pen-name of Prince George of Prussia
Prince George of Prussia
Prince Frederick William George Ernest of Prussia was a member of the House of Hohenzollern....
. Her performances as Goethe's Iphigenie and in the classical drama, as Phädra and (Sophocles
Sophocles
Sophocles is one of three ancient Greek tragedians whose plays have survived. His first plays were written later than those of Aeschylus, and earlier than or contemporary with those of Euripides...
') Antigone
Antigone (Sophocles)
Antigone is a tragedy by Sophocles written in or before 442 BC. Chronologically, it is the third of the three Theban plays but was written first...
became particularly her own. Her retirement became necessary after a paralysis of one side of her face, which occurred in 1869. After her dramatic farewells in 1871 and 1872, eulogised by Theodor Fontane
Theodor Fontane
Theodor Fontane was a German novelist and poet, regarded by many as the most important 19th-century German-language realist writer.-Youth:Fontane was born in Neuruppin into a Huguenot family. At the age of sixteen he was apprenticed to an apothecary, his father's profession. He became an...
, she was awarded a gold medal by the Emperor.
Bayreuth and after
In May 1872 Johanna fulfilled a promise to her uncle Richard Wagner, singing alto in the solo quartet in the performance of Beethoven's 9th Symphony at the foundation-stone laying of the Bayreuth FestspielhausBayreuth Festspielhaus
The or Bayreuth Festival Theatre is an opera house north of Bayreuth, Germany, dedicated solely to the performance of operas by the 19th-century German composer Richard Wagner...
. She also participated in the first Bayreuth Festival
Bayreuth Festival
The Bayreuth Festival is a music festival held annually in Bayreuth, Germany, at which performances of operas by the 19th century German composer Richard Wagner are presented...
of 1876, taking the role of Schwertleite in Die Walküre
Die Walküre
Die Walküre , WWV 86B, is the second of the four operas that form the cycle Der Ring des Nibelungen , by Richard Wagner...
and First Norn in Götterdämmerung
Götterdämmerung
is the last in Richard Wagner's cycle of four operas titled Der Ring des Nibelungen...
in the original first full production of Der Ring des Nibelungen
Der Ring des Nibelungen
Der Ring des Nibelungen is a cycle of four epic operas by the German composer Richard Wagner . The works are based loosely on characters from the Norse sagas and the Nibelungenlied...
. She was not now capable of Brünnhild as originally intended, but as the Valkyr her dramatic control of the scenes, and the energy she infused into them, in rehearsal and performance, realised the composer's true intentions, and set a precedent which was later imitated. Her Norn similarly was invested with her full dramatic resources.
Alfred Jachmann's fortune crashed again after the Franco-Prussian War
Franco-Prussian War
The Franco-Prussian War or Franco-German War, often referred to in France as the 1870 War was a conflict between the Second French Empire and the Kingdom of Prussia. Prussia was aided by the North German Confederation, of which it was a member, and the South German states of Baden, Württemberg and...
, and at Wurzburg Johanna, with her pension from the Berlin Hochspielhaus, continued her work as a singing teacher, and retained the friendship of Kings and Princes which she had long held. Her last public performance was at Wurzburg in scenes from Orfeo in 1882. She moved then to Munich
Munich
Munich The city's motto is "" . Before 2006, it was "Weltstadt mit Herz" . Its native name, , is derived from the Old High German Munichen, meaning "by the monks' place". The city's name derives from the monks of the Benedictine order who founded the city; hence the monk depicted on the city's coat...
, where, in close contact with the Royal Court Theatre, she accepted the post of instructor in singing at the Royal Conservatoire of Music and the title Professor. Ludwig II of Bavaria
Ludwig II of Bavaria
Ludwig II was King of Bavaria from 1864 until shortly before his death. He is sometimes called the Swan King and der Märchenkönig, the Fairy tale King...
presented her with a free seat in the Munich opera, and invited her to a private performance of Parsifal
Parsifal
Parsifal is an opera in three acts by Richard Wagner. It is loosely based on Wolfram von Eschenbach's Parzival, the 13th century epic poem of the Arthurian knight Parzival and his quest for the Holy Grail, and on Chrétien de Troyes' Perceval, the Story of the Grail.Wagner first conceived the work...
in his own theatre. She had many pupils, but, eventually dissatisfied with Munich, she returned to Berlin in 1888 and continued to teach, arranging public concerts for her pupils. She died in Würzburg
Würzburg
Würzburg is a city in the region of Franconia which lies in the northern tip of Bavaria, Germany. Located at the Main River, it is the capital of the Regierungsbezirk Lower Franconia. The regional dialect is Franconian....
of heart illness three days after her 68th birthday.