Friedrich von Flotow

Friedrich von Flotow (27 April 1812 – 24 January 1883) was a German composer. He is chiefly remembered for his opera "Martha", which was popular up to the turn of the 20th century.

Flotow was born in Teutendorf, in Mecklenburg, into an aristocratic family. He studied at the Paris Conservatoire and came under the influence of Auber, Rossini, Meyerbeer, Donizetti, Halévy, and later Gounod and Offenbach. These influences are reflected in his operas, where a distinctive French "opéra comique" flavour exists.

He completed his first opera in 1835, "Pierre et Cathérine", but his breakthrough came with "Le naufrage de la Méduse" (1839). The three-act romantic opera "Alessandro Stradella" of 1844 is recognized as one of Flotow's finer works. "Martha" was first staged in Vienna at the Theater am Kärntnertor on 25 November 1847.

In all, Flotow wrote about 30 operas. Many of these works were performed in different versions and under different titles, in German, French and sometimes other languages. Some survive, some are lost. (The table below is a tentative attempt to list them.) All but "Martha" and "Alessandro Stradella" have fallen into relative obscurity, though there have been a number of attempts to revive other Flotow works in recent years.

His best known aria is probably "Ach! so fromm, ach! so traut." This was added to "Martha" eighteen years after the Vienna premiere. It was originally written for a Flotow opera of 1846. It has been much recorded in its Italian version, "M’apparì tutt’amor."

Between 1856 and 1863 Flotow served as Intendant of the court theatre at Schwerin. He spent his last years in Paris and Vienna and had the satisfaction of seeing his operas mounted as far away as Saint Petersburg and Turin. He died in Darmstadt at the age of 70.

Operas

References

*Cohen, Peter (1992), 'Flotow, Friedrich' in "The New Grove Dictionary of Opera", ed. Stanley Sadie (London) ISBN 0-333-73432-7

Some of the information in this article is taken from the [http://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Friedrich_von_Flotow Dutch Wikipedia article] .