Robert Stoepel
| Robert Stoepel | |
|---|---|
Photograph portrait (carte de visite), c. 1875
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| Born |
Auguste Stöpel 1821 Berlin, Germany |
| Died | October 1, 1887 (aged 66) New York City |
| Education |
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| Occupation | |
| Era | Romantic |
| Notable work | Hiawatha (1859) |
Robert Auguste Stoepel (1821 – October 1, 1887) was a German-born American composer and conductor. His compositions include Hiawatha, a symphony for orchestra and vocal soloists, as well as incidental music for plays, piano works, songs, and several operas. Born in Berlin, Stoepel worked in Paris and London, but spent a large portion of his career in New York City where he died at the age of 66. From 1857 until their divorce in 1869, he was married to the actress Matilda Heron. Their daughter Bijou Heron was also an actress.
He was born Auguste Stöpel in Berlin, 1821. Because his father had a reputation as a court musician, he adopted his forename. His sister, Hélène Stöpel, was noted as a "charming and talented pianist." (She later married the composer William Vincent Wallace.) After he graduated from the Berlin Conservatory of music, he went to Paris where he graduated from the Conservatoire de Paris, where his teachers included Luigi Cherubini, Fromental Halévy, and Friedrich Kalkbrenner He apparently got his start at composing incidental music for dramas there, being one of three composers who contributed to a stage production of Monte-Cristo, a play by Alexandre Dumas and Auguste Maquet which premiered on February 3, 1848 at the Théâtre Historique. According to his obituary in the Musical Times, while in Paris he wrote two operas, Indiana and Charlemagne. In an 1849 article in the Musical World it was noted that he was negotiating with John Medex Maddox to produce his opera, La sentinelle perdu, for the Princess Theatre in London, and that he had already composed a ballet which was performed at the Paris Opera.
In 1850, impresario Max Maretzek brought him to New York City. His first association was with Wallack's Theatre, where he wrote and conducted incidental music for plays. In 1856 the New York Times reported: "The orchestra of this establishment [i.e., Wallack's Theatre ] is deliciously neat and effective, and the compositions it plays are thoroughly artistic. Mr. Robert Stoepel, the conductor, is one of the best informed musicians in the country, and the evidence of taste and knowledge are never absent. He has succeeded in making the musical department an important feature of the entertainments, and if the orchestra always plays as well as it did on Saturday night we are not at all surprised thereat."
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