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 second 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."(footnote: )

The libretto is often compared to Christoph Friedrich Bretzner's contemporaneous Belmont und Constanze, which Mozart set as Die Entführung aus dem Serail two years later. Both deal with abducted European women in Turkish harems, later saved by their European fiancés. Großmann's libretto, however, includes several other abductees of various European backgrounds.

Known Sources

Libretto:

• 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