Schlosstheater Schwetzingen
Encyclopedia
Schwetzingen
Schwetzingen is a German town situated in the northwest of Baden-Württemberg, around southwest of Heidelberg and southeast of Mannheim.Schwetzingen is one of the 5 biggest cities of the Rhein-Neckar-Kreis district and it is a medium-sized centre including the cities and municipalities of...
, Baden-Württemberg
Baden-Württemberg
Baden-Württemberg is one of the 16 states of Germany. Baden-Württemberg is in the southwestern part of the country to the east of the Upper Rhine, and is the third largest in both area and population of Germany's sixteen states, with an area of and 10.7 million inhabitants...
, Germany
Germany
Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...
. The historic building, opened in 1753, is part of the Schwetzingen Castle
Schwetzingen Castle
Schloss Schwetzingen, or Schwetzingen Castle is a palace in the German state of Baden-Württemberg. Schwetzingen was the summer residence of the Electors Palatine Karl III Philip and Charles Theodore. It is situated in Schwetzingen, roughly equidistant from the electors' seats at Heidelberg and...
and since 1952 the principal venue of the Schwetzingen Festival
Schwetzingen Festival
The Schwetzingen Festival is an early summer festival of opera and other classical music presented each year from May to early June in Schwetzingen, Germany....
. It is also called Hoftheater (court theater), Hofoper (court opera), and Comoedienhaus (comedy house). The frequently applied name Rokokotheater (Rococo theater) is misleading, because it shows also neoclassical
Neoclassicism
Neoclassicism is the name given to Western movements in the decorative and visual arts, literature, theatre, music, and architecture that draw inspiration from the "classical" art and culture of Ancient Greece or Ancient Rome...
elements, added in 1762.
History
Karl TheodorCharles Theodore, Elector of Bavaria
Charles Theodore, Prince-Elector, Count Palatine and Duke of Bavaria reigned as Prince-Elector and Count palatine from 1742, as Duke of Jülich and Berg from 1742 and also as Prince-Elector and Duke of Bavaria from 1777, until his death...
, the Pfalzgraf
Count palatine
Count palatine is a high noble title, used to render several comital styles, in some cases also shortened to Palatine, which can have other meanings as well.-Comes palatinus:...
who resided in Mannheim
Mannheim
Mannheim is a city in southwestern Germany. With about 315,000 inhabitants, Mannheim is the second-largest city in the Bundesland of Baden-Württemberg, following the capital city of Stuttgart....
, had the theater built for his summer residence in Schwetzingen in 1752 to the plans of court architect Nicolas de Pigage
Nicolas de Pigage
Nicolas de Pigage was a French builder.Pigage was born in Lunéville. His father was a stonemason. In 1743 he began his studies at the École Militaire changing to the Académie Royale d'Architecture after only one year studying under Jacques-François Blondel...
. It was opened on 15 June 1753, presenting Ignaz Holzbauer
Ignaz Holzbauer
Ignaz Jakob Holzbauer was a composer of symphonies, concertos, operas, and chamber music, and a member of the Mannheim school. His aesthetic style is in line with that of the Sturm und Drang "movement" of German art and literature.Holzbauer was born in Vienna...
's opera Il figlio delle selve. The theater could then be considered a rococo
Rococo
Rococo , also referred to as "Late Baroque", is an 18th-century style which developed as Baroque artists gave up their symmetry and became increasingly ornate, florid, and playful...
creation, but was expanded with early neoclassical
Neoclassicism
Neoclassicism is the name given to Western movements in the decorative and visual arts, literature, theatre, music, and architecture that draw inspiration from the "classical" art and culture of Ancient Greece or Ancient Rome...
tendencies. While it first had no boxes, it was was enlarged in 1762, creating a "box-like" impression. It is the oldest surviving Rangtheater (theater with boxless tears) in Europe. The Mozart family visited
Mozart family grand tour
The Mozart family grand tour was a journey through western Europe, undertaken by Leopold Mozart, his wife Anna Maria, and their musically gifted children Maria Anna and Wolfgang Amadeus from 1763 to 1766. At the start of the tour the children were aged eleven and seven respectively...
the theater in 1763 and saw a play. When Karl Theodor succeeded Maximilian III Joseph of Bavaria as Elector of Bavaria in 1777, the court had to move to Munich and the theater lost its importance. Its original stage machinery was preserved into the 20th century, but it was replaced by modern facilities in the 1950s and again in the 1970s.
As part of the Residenz in the Schwetzingen Castle
Schwetzingen Castle
Schloss Schwetzingen, or Schwetzingen Castle is a palace in the German state of Baden-Württemberg. Schwetzingen was the summer residence of the Electors Palatine Karl III Philip and Charles Theodore. It is situated in Schwetzingen, roughly equidistant from the electors' seats at Heidelberg and...
, it first belonged to the Electors, later to the Land Baden
Baden
Baden is a historical state on the east bank of the Rhine in the southwest of Germany, now the western part of the Baden-Württemberg of Germany....
, then the state Baden-Württemberg
Baden-Württemberg
Baden-Württemberg is one of the 16 states of Germany. Baden-Württemberg is in the southwestern part of the country to the east of the Upper Rhine, and is the third largest in both area and population of Germany's sixteen states, with an area of and 10.7 million inhabitants...
.
Performances
Voltaire
François-Marie Arouet , better known by the pen name Voltaire , was a French Enlightenment writer, historian and philosopher famous for his wit and for his advocacy of civil liberties, including freedom of religion, free trade and separation of church and state...
's L'orphelin de la Chine was premiered in 1755, his tragedy "Olimpie" was premiered in 1762, staged by Cosimo Alessandro Collini (1727–1806). Francesca Lebrun
Francesca Lebrun
Francesca Lebrun, née Danzi , was a noted 18th-century German singer and composer.She was born Franziska Dorothea Danzi in Mannheim, Germany. Her father was the Italian-born cellist Innocenz Danzi and her younger brother was the composer and cellist Franz Danzi...
, the sister of Franz Danzi
Franz Danzi
Franz Ignaz Danzi was a German cellist, composer and conductor, the son of the noted Italian cellist Innocenz Danzi. Born in Schwetzingen, Franz Danzi worked in Mannheim, Munich, Stuttgart and Karlsruhe, where he died....
, a leading singer of the Mannheim Opera, performed for example the part of Parthenia in Anton Schweitzer
Anton Schweitzer
Anton Schweitzer was a German composer of operas.He was a child prodigy who obtained the patronage of the duke of Hildburghausen, who sent him to study in Bayreuth in 1758, then Italy , and made him Kapellmeister enabling him to tour Europe...
's Alceste in Schwetzingen in 1775.
Since 1952 the theater has been the main venue of the Schwetzingen Festival
Schwetzingen Festival
The Schwetzingen Festival is an early summer festival of opera and other classical music presented each year from May to early June in Schwetzingen, Germany....
, which also presents contemporary operas. More than 35 operas have been commissioned and premiered, including works by Hans Werner Henze
Hans Werner Henze
Hans Werner Henze is a German composer of prodigious output best known for "his consistent cultivation of music for the theatre throughout his life"...
, Werner Egk
Werner Egk
Werner Egk , born Werner Joseph Mayer, was a German composer.-Early career:He was born in the Swabian town of Auchsesheim, today part of Donauwörth, Germany. His family, of Catholic peasant stock, moved to Augsburg when Egk was six. He studied at a Benedictine Gymnasium and entered the municipal...
, Udo Zimmermann
Udo Zimmermann
Udo Zimmermann was born in Dresden on October 6, 1943. He is a German composer, music director, and conductor.- Biography :Zimmermann was a member of the Dresdner Kreuzchor from 1954 to 1962. He then continued his music education at the Dresden Music School. He studied composition with Johannes...
, Aribert Reimann
Aribert Reimann
Aribert Reimann is a German opera composer, pianist and accompanist, known especially for his literary operas. His version of King Lear was written at the suggestion of Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau who sang the title role....
, Salvatore Sciarrino
Salvatore Sciarrino
Salvatore Sciarrino is an Italian composer of contemporary classical music.-Biography:In his youth, Sciarrino was attracted to the visual arts, but began experimenting with music when he was twelve. Though he had some lessons from Antonino Titone and Turi Belfiore, he is primarily self-taught as a...
, Adriana Hölszky
Adriana Hölszky
Adriana Hölszky is an Romanian-born German music educator, composer and pianist who has been living in Germany since 1976.-Biography:...
, Bernhard Lang
Bernhard Lang
Bernhard Lang is an Austrian composer of the experimental and avant-garde school, particularly advocating a style he has self-termed "repetition-perpetrator"....
, Wolfgang Rihm
Wolfgang Rihm
Wolfgang Rihm is a German composer.Rihm is Head of the Institute of Modern Music at the Karlsruhe Conservatory of Music and has been composer in residence at the Lucerne Festival and the Salzburg Festival...
, Michael Jarrell
Michael Jarrell
Michael Jarrell is a Swiss composer. Born in Geneva, he studied at the Conservatoire there, and later with Klaus Huber in Freiburg.His works span many genres...
, Georg Friedrich Haas
Georg Friedrich Haas
Georg Friedrich Haas is an Austrian composer of spectral music.He grew up in Tschagguns and studied composition with Gösta Neuwirth, Iván Erőd, and piano with Doris Wolf at the Musikhochschule in Graz...
and Enno Poppe
Enno Poppe
Enno Poppe is a German composer and conductor of classical music and an academic teacher.-Professional career:...
.
Premieres have included
- Werner Egk: Der Revisor (9 May 1957)
- Giselher KlebeGiselher KlebeGiselher Wolfgang Klebe was a German composer. He composed more than 140 works, among them 14 operas, 8 symphonies, 15 solo concerts, chamber music, piano works, and sacred music.-Biography:...
: Das Märchen von der schönen LilieDas Märchen von der schönen LilieDas Märchen von der schönen Lilie, Op. 55, is an opera in two acts by Giselher Klebe; his wife, Lore Klebe, wrote the libretto based on the fairy tale, Das Märchen, part of the novella Unterhaltungen deutscher Ausgewanderten by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe.It premiered on 15 May 1969 at the...
(15 May 1959) - Gerhard WimbergerGerhard WimbergerGerhard Wimberger is an Austrian composer and conductor.-Career:Wimberger studied at the Mozarteum in Salzburg...
: La Battaglia (12 May 1960) - Hans Werner Henze: Elegie für junge LiebendeElegy for Young LoversElegy for Young Lovers is an opera in three acts by Hans Werner Henze to an English libretto by W. H. Auden and Chester Kallman.-Background:...
(20 May 1961) - Wolfgang FortnerWolfgang FortnerWolfgang Fortner was a German composer, composition teacher and conductor.-Life:Fortner was born in Leipzig. From his parents - both singers - Fortner very early on had intense contact with music...
: In seinem Garten liebt Don Perlimplim Belisa (10 May 1962) - Aribert Reimann: Melusine (29 Apr 1971)
- Hans Werner Henze: Pollicino (1981)
- Hans Werner Henze: Die englische KatzeThe English CatThe English Cat is an opera in two acts by Hans Werner Henze to an English libretto by Edward Bond, based on Les peines de coeur d'une chatte anglaise by Honoré de Balzac...
(2 June 1983) - Hans Jürgen von Bose: Die Leiden des jungen Werthers (1 May 1986)
- Rolf LiebermannRolf LiebermannRolf Liebermann , was a Swiss composer and music administrator born in Zurich, and associated with several different musical genres. His output included chansons, classical, and light music. His classical music often combines myriad styles and techniques, including those drawn from baroque,...
: Der Wald (1988) - Manfred TrojahnManfred Trojahn-Professional career:Manfred Trojahn was born in Cremlingen in Lower Saxony and began his musical studies in 1966 in orchestra music at the music school of the city of Braunschweig. After graduating in 1970 he concluded his studies as a flutist at the Hochschule für Musik und Theater Hamburg with...
: Enrico (11 Apr 1991) - Hans Werner Henze: Tanzstunden (1997)
- Salvatore Sciarrino: Luci mie traditrici (19 May 1998)
- Karl Wieland Kurz: Gute Miene böses Spiel (2000)
- Salvatore Sciarrino: Macbeth (6 June 2002)
Each year the the festival has presented the revival of a Baroque or classical opera. Holzbauers Il figlio delle selve, which had opened the theater in 1753, was performed 250 years later in 2003.
Since 1969 the theater has been a venue of the Mozartfest, an annual festival in fall organized by the association Mozartgesellschaft Schwetzingen.
Literature
- Silke Leopold, Bärbel Pelker (ed.): Hofoper in Schwetzingen. Musik, Bühnenkunst, Architektur. Universitätsverlag Winter, Heidelberg 2004, ISBN 3-8253-1524-X
- Rolf Dieter Opel: Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart in Schwetzingen und Mannheim. 3. Auflage. Universitätsverlag Winter, Heidelberg 2006, ISBN 3-8253-7082-8
- Hans Joachim Scholderer: Schlosstheater Ludwigsburg. ed. Finanzministerium Baden-Württemberg. Stuttgart 1998
External links
- Schloss Schwetzingen schloss-schwetzingen.de (Schlösserverwaltung Baden-Württemberg)
- Schwetzingen: Rokokotheater andreas-praefcke.de
- Schwetzinger Mozartfest Schwetzingen 2011
- Acoustics of a selection of famous 18th century opera houses: Versailles, Markgräfliches Opernhaus, Drottningholm, Schwetzingen Arup Acoustics 2008