Theater auf der Wieden

The Theater auf der Wieden, also called the Freihaus-Theater auf der Wieden or the Wiednertheater, was a theater located in the then-suburban Wieden district of Vienna in the late 18th century.

History

The theater was built in 1787. [Grove opera dictionary, "Wieden"] . In 1788, it benefited from the closure of the Kärntnertortheater, which competed with it in offering a program of popular theater. In 1789, the theatrical troupe of Emanuel Schikaneder became the resident company at the Wiednertheater, offering "mostly German operas and plays with songs and incidental music (tragedies, comedies, and spectacles with elaborate stage machinery)" (Buch 1997, 198). The company staged Mozart's Abduction from the Seraglio in April and May of 1789. [Buch 1997, 197]

Starting in 1789, Schikaneder's company staged a series of fairy tale operas. These included "Der Stein der Weisen" ("The Philosopher's Stone"), a collaboratively written work to which Mozart contributed a small portion of the music (see Benedikt Schack). The fairy tale series culminated with the premiere in September 1791 of Mozart's "The Magic Flute". The latter was a success, and played for over 100 performances.

The theater continued to be used for opera until 1801, [Grove opera dictionary, "Wieden"] when Schikaneder moved the troupe to his newly-built "Theater an der Wien". [Grove opera dictionary, "Vienna"] The former theater was converted into apartment housing. [German Wikipedia: [http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freihaus_auf_der_Wieden] ]

A shack?

Ignaz von Seyfried (1776–1841) was the musical director of the theater from 1798–1801, continuing in this role at the Theater an der Wien until 1826. In 1840, he wrote a contribution to the "Neue Zeitschrift für Musik" (12/46, 5 June 1840) in which he described the "Theater an der Wieden" in rather derogatory terms: "... for that limited venue, not much better than a wooden shack [German "Holzbude"] , Mozart composed his immortal Magic Flute". [Buch 2005] Not all scholars agree with this assessment Fact|date=July 2007, but it does fit with the observation that Schickaneder later saw fit to build a new theater for his company.

Notes

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References

*Buch, David (1997) "Mozart and the Theater auf der Wieden: New Attributions and Perspectives," "Cambridge Opera Journal", pp. 195-232.
*Buch, David (2005) "Three posthumous reports concerning Mozart in his late Viennese years," "Eighteenth-Century Music" 2/1, 125–129.
*"Grove Dictionary of Opera", online edition, articles "Wieden" and "Vienna". Copyright 2007 by Oxford University Press.