Adelheit von Veltheim

SeiN 10

Schauspiel mit Gesang, premiered in Frankfurt am Main, 23 September 1780

Libretto by Gustav Friedrich Wilhelm Großmann

Overview

Neefe and Großmann wrote this extensive four-act Singspiel for their troupe's guest season at the 1780 Autumn Fair at Frankfurt's Theater in der Junghof, their second short residence that year. In its first performance at the Bonn court a few weeks later, Adelheit was given pride of place on 11 October during the pomp around Archduke Maximilian Franz's election as Coadjutor (i.e. Maximilian Friedrich's successor as Elector of Cologne). The Archduke was duly impressed, and "honored Großmann with a precious gold watch and 50 new Louis d'or to divide among the company."

The dramatis personae, and the actors and singers from Großmann's company who created the roles, are as follows:

Role	Voice Type	Premiere Cast
Achmet, Bassa of Tunis	Tenor	Heinrich Christian Pleißner
Adelheit von Veltheim, a German woman	Soprano	Anna Christiane Josephi
Signora Olivia, an Italian woman	Soprano	Susanna Neefe
Donna Velaska, a Spanish woman	Soprano	Maria Franziska Helmuth
Miss Flovr, an English woman	Soprano	Henriette Huber
Demoiselle La Feuquiere, a French woman	Spoken	Christiane Brandt
Mehmet, overseer of the Seraglio	Bass	Johann Friedrich Helmuth
Franz von Veltheim	Spoken	Gustav Friedrich Wilhelm Großmann
Karl von Bingen, under the name Osman	Spoken	Franz Brandt
Adolph von Posen	Spoken	Anton Steiger
Turkish Women of the Seraglio, White and Black Slaves, Janissaries, German Knights	SATB	unnamed

The libretto is often compared to Christoph Friedrich Bretzner's near-contemporaneous Belmont und Constanze, which Mozart set as Die Entführung aus dem Serail two years later. Both begin with exactly the same set, with a view of the sea through a large iron gate. Both deal with European women held as slaves in Middle Eastern harems, who then are saved by their European fiancés. Both contrast the despotism of the Orient with the supposedly Enlightened West, only to turn the tables with a surprising act of mercy by the Bassa/Pasha in the final scene. The differences are nevertheless instructive. Großmann's libretto, which preceded Bretzner's, has a much larger cast of characters and places far greater emphasis on spoken dialogue. The printed libretto is approximately twice as long as that of Die Entführung. The Bassa's harem includes several other abductees of various European backgrounds – along with the stereotypical personality traits to match: the delicate and haughty La Feuquiere, the stoic and caustic Donna Velaska, the spirited and bossy Donna Olivia, and the proper and diplomatic Miss Flovr.

Sources

Libretto:

• [Frankfurt, 1780]: Washington, Library of Congress, ML48 [S11734]
  • Although no place or date is mentioned, the order and wording of the dramatis personae matches that of the Frankfurt playbill, including the character of Adolph von Posen, who is missing from the other libretti. This would presumably make this the earliest libretto which most closely matches the Frankfurt premiere. (This would also render Neefe's self-identification on the title page as "Herrn Hoforganist Neefe zu Bonn" as a considerable exaggeration.) On pp. 131–136, there is an extensive list of changes headed "Veränderungen für das B.. Theater: Nach welchen Donna Velaska gar nicht, und Miss Flovr nur in den Chören singt" (Changes for the [Bonn] theater, in which Donna Velaska does not sing at all, and Miss Flovr only in the choruses). Several changes, however, affect more than the singing parts.
• Leipzig: Dyck, 1781: Munich, Bayerische Staatsbibliothek, Slg.Her 1825; and Washington, Library of Congress, ML 48 [S7068]
• Cologne: Imhof, 1784: Munich, Bayerische Staatsbibliothek, P.o.germ. 524

Music:

• Vienna, Gesellschaft der Musikfreunde, IV 24461 (H 29052)
  • Undated fair copy of the full score in four volumes (135, 114, 175, 57 pp.), most likely fully, or at least partially, in Neefe's hand. The vocal text clearly is by him, and most of the characteristics of the musical text match his handwriting as well, especially the idiosyncratic C-Clef and Bass Clef. Instrument names, tempo indications, time signatures, and rests are far more carefully drawn than in other known autographs, but this could well be the result of the score's evident origin as a commercial copy. The title page of the 1781 libretto notes that Neefe's score, "sauber geschrieben," can be bought from the publisher for 8 Louis d'or.
• Hamburg, Staats- und Universitätsbibliothek Carl von Ossietzky, ND VII 285