Albert Lortzing

Gustav Albert Lortzing (October 23, 1801 – January 21, 1851) was a German composer, actor and singer. He is considered to be the main representative of the German Spieloper, a form similar to the French opéra comique, which grew out of the Singspiel.

Lortzing was born in Berlin to Johann Gottlieb and Charlotte Sophie Lortzing. They had abandoned their leather shop and travelled through Germany as itinerant actors, founding the Berlin theatre company Urania, and turning their amateur passion into a profession. The young Lortzing's first stage appearance was at the age of 12, entertaining the audience with comic poems during the interval in the Kornhaus at the Freiburg Münster. From 1817, the Lortzing family were part of Josef Derossi ensemble in the Rhineland, treading the boards at Bonn, Düsseldorf, Barmen and Aachen. Albert Lortzing became an audience favourite, playing the roles of a youthful lover, a country boy and bon vivant, sometimes also singing small tenor or baritone roles.

He married an actress, Rosina Regine Ahles, on January 30, 1824, with whom he subsequently had 11 children. The couple belonged to the Hoftheater in Detmold from late 1826, which toured to Münster and Osnabrück. Lortzing joined the Freemasons, a popular refuge for artists in Metternich's police state. Lortzing composed an oratorio in Detmold, Die Himmelfahrt Christi (Christ's Ascension), which premiered in Münster, and predictably earned a rebuke for the young composer from the Münster regional governor, who claimed that Lortzing was "a composer of no renown".

Lortzing composed the music for Christian Dietrich Grabbe's Don Juan und Faust, playing the role of Don Juan himself, with his wife as Donna Anna. Lortzing received a glowing report from an anonymous reviewer in a Frankfurt paper, who also mistakenly praised Lortzing for the text "by this brilliant poet". Grabbe, the real poet, was outraged, although the review did bring good publicity for the piece.

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