Oberon is an epic poem by the German writer Christoph Martin Wieland. It was based on the epic romance Huon de Bordeaux , a French medieval tale, [1] and influenced by Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream and Alexander Pope's version of Geoffrey Chaucer's The Merchant's Tale . [2] It first appeared in 1780 and went through seven rewrites before its final form was published in 1796.
For the slaying of Karl the Great's despicable son, Charlot, Huon duke of Guienne, is condemned to go to Babylon (or Bagdad) and demand four molars and a tuft of the beard of the kalif after kissing the latter's daughter and slaying her intended. This feat is accomplished through the friendship of Oberon and the magic power of his horn, a blast of which causes all wicked persons to dance, and of a certain ring, which had been abstracted from its owner, Titania, and to which all the spirit world was subject. Commanded to go to the Pope at Rome before consummating marriage with the kalif's daughter, Huon yields to temptation and the couple are thrown on a desert isle by Oberon, who had deserted his Titania with the vow never to return to her unless a human couple should be found who were absolutely faithful, since she had championed the faithless girl wife of an aged dotard. About the invented quarrel of Oberon and his queen, Titania, is centred the whole conception of Wieland's poem. Thrown by the instrumentality of Titania into captivity in Tunis, Huon and Rezia withstand the first test of temptation and, reunited, return to Paris and reconcile Karl. [2]
It had a major influence on many musical and poetic works of the time, such as Schiller's Don Carlos , Goethe's Faust: The Second Part of the Tragedy and Mozart's The Magic Flute , as well as on the Portuguese poet Francisco Manoel de Nascimento.
An adaptation of the poem by Sophie Seyler, titled Hüon und Amande , was re-adapted by Karl Ludwig Giesecke to provide a libretto for Paul Wranitzky, without crediting her. Its English translators include Matthew Lewis, William Sotheby and John Quincy Adams. [3] The libretto of The Magic Flute by Emanuel Schikaneder was evidently greatly inspired by Giesecke's and thus on Seyler's version of Oberon. [4]
Carl Maria von Weber used the poem as the basis for his last opera, Oberon , in 1826.
The artist Gustav Paul Closs provided illustrations for it.
Oberon is a legendary king of the fairies.
The Magic Flute, K. 620, is an opera in two acts by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart to a German libretto by Emanuel Schikaneder. The work is in the form of a Singspiel, a popular form during the time it was written that included both singing and spoken dialogue. The work premiered on 30 September 1791 at Schikaneder's theatre, the Freihaus-Theater auf der Wieden in Vienna, just two months before the composer's premature death. Still a staple of the opera repertory, its popularity was reflected by two immediate sequels, Peter Winter's Das Labyrinth oder Der Kampf mit den Elementen. Der Zauberflöte zweyter Theil (1798) and a fragmentary libretto by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe titled The Magic Flute Part Two.
Oberon is a king of the fairies in medieval and Renaissance literature. He is best known as a character in William Shakespeare's play A Midsummer Night's Dream, in which he is King of the Fairies and spouse of Titania, Queen of the Fairies.
Huon of Bordeaux is the title character of a 13th-century French epic poem with romance elements.
Christoph Martin Wieland was a German poet and writer. He is best-remembered for having written the first Bildungsroman, as well as the epic Oberon, which formed the basis for Carl Maria von Weber's opera of the same name. His thought was representative of the cosmopolitanism of the German Enlightenment, exemplified in his remark: "Only a true cosmopolitan can be a good citizen."
Emanuel Schikaneder was a German impresario, dramatist, actor, singer, and composer. He wrote the libretto of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart's opera The Magic Flute and was the builder of the Theater an der Wien. Peter Branscombe called him "one of the most talented theatre men of his era". Aside from Mozart, he worked with Salieri, Haydn and Beethoven.
Titania is a character in William Shakespeare's 1595–1596 play A Midsummer Night's Dream.
Oberon, or The Elf-King's Oath is a 3-act romantic opera with spoken dialogue composed in 1825–26 by Carl Maria von Weber. The only English opera ever set by Weber, the libretto by James Robinson Planché was based on the German poem Oberon by Christoph Martin Wieland, which itself was based on the epic romance Huon de Bordeaux, a French medieval tale. It was premiered in London on 12 April 1826.
(Maria) Josepha Weber was a German soprano of the classical era. She was a sister-in-law of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, and the first to perform the role of The Queen of the Night in Mozart's opera The Magic Flute (1791).
Isoline is an opera, described as a conte de fées in three acts and ten tableaux, on a text by Catulle Mendès, with music by André Messager.
Holger Danske is the title of a 1789 Syngespil opera based on the Oberon myth, with music by F.L.Æ. Kunzen and a Danish libretto by Jens Baggesen.
Carl Ludwig Giesecke FRSE was a German actor, librettist, polar explorer and mineralogist. In his youth he was called Johann Georg Metzler; in his later career in Ireland he was Sir Charles Lewis Giesecke.
Friederike Sophie Seyler was a German actress, playwright and librettist. Alongside Friederike Caroline Neuber, she was widely considered Germany's greatest actress of the 18th century; Gotthold Ephraim Lessing described her in his Hamburg Dramaturgy as "incontestably one of the best actresses that German theatre has ever seen."
Abel Seyler was a Swiss-born theatre director and former merchant banker, who was regarded as one of the great theatre principals of 18th century Europe. He was "the leading patron of German theatre" in his lifetime, and is credited with introducing Shakespeare to a German language audience, and with promoting the concept of a national theatre in the tradition of Ludvig Holberg, the Sturm und Drang playwrights, and German opera. Already in his lifetime, he was described as "one of German art's most meritorious men."
The Seyler Theatre Company, also known as the Seyler Company, was a theatrical company founded in 1769 by Abel Seyler, a Hamburg businessman originally from Switzerland who became "the leading patron of German theatre" in his lifetime. It was largely a continuation of the Hamburgische Entreprise, whose dramaturge was Gotthold Ephraim Lessing and whose main owner was Seyler. The Seyler theatrical company became one of the most famous theatrical companies of Europe in the 18th century, attracting some of Germany's leading actors, playwrights and composers. It originally comprised around 60 members, including an orchestra, a ballet, house dramatists and set designers. Between 1777 and 1778 Seyler employed some 230 actors, singers and musicians. The company was originally contracted by the Hanoverian court with performing at Hanover and other cities of the kingdom. The company would eventually perform all across Germany, and performed for three years at the Weimar Schlosstheater, invited by Duchess Anna Amalia of Brunswick-Wolfenbüttel. When Anna Amalia succeeded in engaging the Seyler Company, this was "an extremely fortunate coup. The Seyler Company was the best theatre company in Germany at that time." The company had an important role in the development of German opera in the late 18th century.
Alceste is an opera in German in five acts by Anton Schweitzer with a libretto by Christoph Martin Wieland. It was commissioned by Abel Seyler for the Seylersche Schauspiel-Gesellschaft, and premiered on 28 May 1773 at the Hoftheater Weimar. Considered a milestone of German opera, it was revived in Weimar and recorded in 1999.
Oberon, or The Elf King, or simply Oberon, originally known as Huon and Amanda, is a romantic Singspiel in five acts by Friederike Sophie Seyler, based on the poem Oberon by Christoph Martin Wieland, which itself was based on the epic romance Huon of Bordeaux, a French medieval tale. It has been named for two of its central characters, the knight Huon and the fairy king Oberon, respectively.
The Magic Flute is a celebrated opera composed in 1791 by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. Mozart employed a libretto written by his close colleague Emanuel Schikaneder, the director of the Theater auf der Wieden at which the opera premiered in the same year.. Grout and Williams describe the libretto thus:
Schikaneder, a kind of literary magpie, filched characters, scenes, incidents, and situations from others' plays and novels and with Mozart's assistance organized them into a libretto that ranges all the way from buffoonery to high solemnity, from childish faerie to sublime human aspiration – in short from the circus to the temple, but never neglecting an opportunity for effective theater along the way.
Franziska Romana Koch, née Gieraneck, Giwraneck, Giraneck, Jiránek (1748–1796) was a German ballet dancer, soprano, and actress. First a dancer as the member of the theatre company Kochische Gesellschaft, she also trained her voice and worked at the court theatre of Weimar. Anton Schweitzer composed the opera Alceste for her, and its librettist Christoph Martin Wieland celebrated her performance in the title role in a poem. She later worked in Gotha, and finally in Leipzig as a member of Bondini's company, where she retired in 1787.