Eduard Devrient News
German opera singer (1801-1877)
- baritone
- Kingdom of Prussia
- writer, actor, opera singer, librettist, stage actor
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2024-04-25
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2020-07-04 12:06:00
Wagner and the Dresden Uprising (May 1849)
[…] reactionary movement, headed by Friedrich von Beust, and rejection of the constitution, ultimately provoked democratic opponents into a hurried response. On May 3, the town council organized the Communal Guard into a defense committee. Loyalist troops opened fire. Early on May 4, king and government escaped to Königstein; townsmen formed a provisional government. Provisional government Even at the time, the extent of Wagner’s involvement was obscured. Eduard Devrient reports Minna visiting him in desperation for advice concerning her husband, implicated yet not directly involved (Diary entry for 17 May 1849). Devrient is clear that she has been deceived. Wagner would downplay his role further in Mein Leben, yet nevertheless admits considerable involvement. He had the printer of Röckel’s Volksblätter print appeals to the Saxon army: “Are you with us against foreign troops?” (My Life, English translation, 394). Wagner probably ordered hand-grenades; he certainly served on the barricades and […]
2019-08-05 07:24:58
More than just a stepping stone: Marschner's Hans Heiling in fine new recording from Essen
[…] of the Earth Spirits, Heiko Trinsinger as Hans Heiling, Jessica Muirhead as Anna, Bettina Ranch as Gertrude and Jeffrey Dowd as Konrad. One of the problems that composers like Weber and Marschner had was the difficulty in getting adequate librettos, Weber's successful opera Der Freischutz being followed by Euryanthe and Oberon both of which struggle because of their librettos. Marschner's advantage with Hans Heiling was that he had a very serviceable libretto by the actor and singer Eduard Devrient (in fact written with the hope that Felix Mendelssohn might set it!). German Romantic operas of the period often use the device of the contrast between the good hero and the bad, what Devrient created in Hans Heiling was a hero who is divided in himself.The plot involves Hans Heiling who is a King of the Earth Spirits, but half-mortal. He is in love with a mortal woman, Anna, and as the opera progresses […]
2019-04-21 09:58:00
Rienzi, Deutsche Oper, 18 April 2019
[…] Oper Parsifal, I think, even though that came later. Too often, though, one had the impression poor chorus members were merely being left to fend for themselves. In the title role, Torsten Kerl had his moments, although too often he proved vocally stretched. There could be no faulting his enthusiasm, though, nor his skills as a film propagandist. (His Overture body double, Gernot Frischling, deserves credit too.) Annika Schlicht, however, in the Wilhelmine Schröder-Devrient role of Adriano, proved the star of the show: clear as a bell, bright and subtle as a speaking clarinet, and very much a breeches mezzo on stage. (Schröder-Devrient seems to have struggled to learn the part: there were clearly no such difficulties here.) I hope to hear – and see – more from her. Insofar as the cuts permitted, Elisabeth Teige also impressed as Irene, as did those assuming what were now less […]
2016-09-28 04:04:02
[…] was Geyer’s biological child: he used the name Geyer until he was in his teens. He certainly ‘inherited’ Geyer’s love of the theatre and was encouraged in both this and music by Geyer and, when Geyer himself died in 1821, by Geyer’s brother, who paid for him to attend the Kreuschule, the grammar school for the members of the choir of the Chapel of the Holy Cross. In 1829 a performance by the soprano Wilhelmine Schröder-Devrient deeply impressed him with its fusion of music and drama, and this inspiration, underpinned by a sound musical inspiration and driven by a seemingly-boundless self-confidence, would set the course for his musical career. Interior of the Festspielhaus at Bayreuth. If you’re gonna dream, you might as well dream big. In 1833 his education was complete and Wagner’s brother Albert obtained a position for him as choirmaster at the theatre in Wurzburg. This was […]
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