On 12th March1939 the first scene was performed to Goepfat´s 80th birthday in the German National Theatre Weimar.
Morgenfeier zum 80. Geburtstag
No other performances known.
1939-03-12 Weimar
Month: July 2024
online TODAY
Google has scanned a piano reduction that is available for free download. Thank you!
One of the scores was initially untraceable.
The piano reduction was republished by the Ellenberger Institute in July 2024 and published on YouTube with a piano reduction in full performance.
Thanks to the discovery of the score in the Thuringian State Music Archive, the opera was first published on October 3, 2024.
Listen to the full performance!
1891-12-09 Hengelo
World Premiere 9th December 1891 concertante in Hengelo NL.
as I heard from the Schouwburg Hengelo director it must have been in the
Beursgebouw building which burnt down in 1921. It was built by architect Jacobus Moll.
Now there is the Schouwburg since 1913: https://www.schouwburghengelo.nl/
The history of the fire brigade in Hengelo
M. Zweerink
One of the most discussed major fires from Hengelo’s gray past is the devastating fire of the Beursgebouw in 1921. Attention has also been paid to this in this magazine.
The historic building was located on the corner of Beursstraat and the station square, where the ABN-AMRO bank is currently located. The name “Beursstraat” still reminds us of this building. By council decision of January 22, 1884, this street was called “Stationsweg”. The Stock Exchange building had already existed for 19 years and would only later give its name to this street.
We have to go back to 1865, the year in which the construction of this monumental building was initiated. In that year, the N.V. Twentsche Handels Sociëteit was founded. In those days, Hengelo became a center of railways serving lines from Enschede,
Oldenzaal, Almelo and Goor came together. This was the reason to build a building where cotton traders and manufacturers could meet and do business. The Dutch Trading Company provided strong assistance and the Stock Exchange building was built from a large stock exchange. The land price at that time was ƒ 1.25 per square meter. On April 25, 1867, the imposing building at that time was solemnly opened with a grand celebration speech by Mr. P. Vissering, professor in Leiden. The entrance with a bluestone staircase and several pillars, which formed a kind of loggia, increased the stateliness of the building. Despite the fact that it has a rich past, it never came into its own as a commercial building.
The large hall was used by the Concert Association, founded in 1887. All kinds of national celebrities performed there and it was, until the opening of the current Concertgebouw across the street in 1913, the music center of Hengelo.
In the Stock Exchange building, in addition to the large hall, rooms were set up as a telegraph office, club and café and restaurant. Eminent speakers usually spoke before a packed room. Among them were Mr. Troelstra and the great Catholic leader Dr. Schaepman. Streets in Hengelo are named after both greats.
During the First World War (1914-1918) the building was used for a while as a residence for soldiers and internees.
But the Hengelo fire brigade also used the Beursgebouw at that time. It was during the time of “Spray I” and “Spray ll”.
composer
Liszt student Karl Eduard Goepfart
Karl Eduard Goepfart
Karl Eduard Goepfart (* 8. März 1859 in Mönchenholzhausen near Erfurt; † 30. Januar 1942 in Weimar) was a German musician, composer and conductor.
1876 he continued his studies in Weimar and became member of the “Thursday round” of Franz Liszt. 1885 he composed a fairy tale opera Beerenlieschen. He conducted the world premiere in the same year in the Weimar Hoftheater. In 1887 his opera Quintin Messis – der Schmied von Antwerpen, premiered at Weima Hoftheater. From 1909 thru 1927 Goepfart lived and worked in Potsdam.
Sarastro. Musik-Drama in drei Aufzügen (Libretto: von Gottfried Stommel und Johann Wolfgang von Goethe) premiered 9th December 1891 concertante in Hengelo.
In 1939 the first scene was given in an event for Goepfart´s 80th birthday in Weimar.
Karl Goepfart Turns 70
The events of the last decade have pushed many excellent German musicians into the background, unable to assert themselves in the loud and reckless manner so common today. Among these quiet artists is the composer Karl Goepfart, who turned 70 on March 8th and now lives in Weimar. His distinctive male and mixed choirs once carried his name to—one might say—all parts of the world and are still widely heard today. However, this only touches on a small part of Goepfart’s oeuvre. None other than Liszt, with whom the young man studied, recognized Goepfart’s talent for opera and actively promoted it. His first opera, “Quintin messis,” premiered in Weimar at Liszt’s instigation. In addition to a comic opera, “Camilla,” and the musical drama “Sarastro,” a sequel to Mozart’s “The Magic Flute,” G. created a number of successful, genuinely folk-like fairy tales and singspiels,
of which, for example, “The Violinist of Gmünd” was performed as a festival play in Gmünd, Swabia, for many years. Furthermore, Goepfart was also extremely active in the field of instrumental composition. He wrote various symphonies, symphonic poems, and a whole series of chamber music works, which, as far as we know, demonstrate a musician in excellent health, far more rooted in Viennese Classicism than Romanticism. This should also be a reason to engage with these works by Goepfart more than has been the case so far. Simply rich, unadulterated instrumental music would be doubly welcome today.
In a letter he writes:
“Many thanks for your immediate sending of the queried? reports, which delighted me and my family, mother and siblings. Thank you again a thousand times for that. May the music of ‘Camilla’ give you eloquent acknowledgment, whose sounds were once perceived and described by Master Liszt as ‘remarkably authentically Italian’ [a small musical example follows]. The naturally simple melodic richness of the droll little work resonated in the master’s sensitive and natural ear with an echo from his past youth, something he assured me more than once. The songs and duets of Camilla and [Sarastro?] were his favorite pieces, which I had to play (and have sung) for him very often (still in sketches) at the time. He particularly emphasized the sensual, cheerful vocal element throughout, and with that, he hit the nail on the head, for the opera was born out of the hour. [.]”.
Goethe
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe[a] (28 August 1749 – 22 March 1832) was a German polymath and writer, who is widely regarded as the greatest and most influential writer in the German language. His work has had a profound and wide-ranging influence on Western literary, political, and philosophical thought from the late 18th century to the present day.[3][4] A poet, playwright, novelist, scientist, statesman, theatre director, and critic;[3] his works include plays, poetry and aesthetic criticism, as well as treatises on botany, anatomy, and color.
Later his fragment was published in 1828 “Der Zauberflöte zweyter Theil“, which has been completed by librettist Gottfried Stommel to this opera.
The Magic Flute Part Two – Wikipedia
Goethes fragment can be downloaded @ digitalisierten Bibliothek München for free.
There are some other operas or Singspiele with original texts by Goethe:
- opera buffa “L´impresario in angustie” – Musik Cimarosa
- “Scherz, Liste und Rache” – Musik Philipp Christoph Kayser
- Singspiel “Erwin und Elmire”
- Musik Herzogin Anna Amalia
- Musik Johann André
- Singspiel “Jery und Bätely” – Musik Reichardt
- “Faust” – Musik Fürst Antoni Henryk Radziwill
- a few more
Goethe
Goethe as the basic lyricist for Sarastro
libretto
Goethe, edited and expanded by Gottfried Stommel
vocal score
Historical from Goepfart
Stommel
Gottfried Stommel expanded Goethe’s fragment