Does anyone know this opera? I have always been curious about it. It dates from 1884 and was was enormously popular in its time. There is a recording available on Capriccio.
Excerpts here:
https://www.jpc.de/jpcng/classic/detail/-/art/Viktor-Nessler-Der-Trompeter-von-S%E4ckingen/hnum/3058292 (https://www.jpc.de/jpcng/classic/detail/-/art/Viktor-Nessler-Der-Trompeter-von-S%E4ckingen/hnum/3058292)
Although designated an opera, this sounds more like an operetta to me.
There is even a silent film on the legendary trumpeter Franz Werner Kirchhofer (1633-1690, from Bad Säckingen, Germany) who also was a teacher and chorus conductor. The opera (as it is definitely called on the score's front page) is based on a biography by Joseph Victor von Scheffel. Nessler was a conductor of the Leipzig Opera. His opera was performed over 900 times - and this alone in 1888! In other words: unsung today only!
Oh, I know it calls itself an opera. Nevertheless...
Neveretheless what?? In this case you should also disagree on Lortzing's "Zar und Zimmermann" and "Der Wildschütz" being called "komische Oper" and Nicolai's "Die lustigen Weiber von Windsor" a "komisch-fantastische Oper". The genre of "Deutsche Spieloper" is clearly recognised and I don't see any reasons for the "Trompeter von Säckingen" not belonging to this same category. Have you ever heard the opera in complete or do you know only the famous aria?
I bow to your greater knowledge of the genre(s) involved. My sole concern was to flag up that this is an opera of a lighter kind.
Frankly, none amongst light or comic German operas à la Lortzing, Flotow or Nicolai reach the "humour virtuosity" of Verdi's "Falstaff" - this meaning the music :-) Not to speak about Rossini and Donizetti - and, why not, about Respighi's opera "Belfagor"?
Germany's humour in arts seems to excel more in the illustative arts of Wildhelm Buscha and Loriot - or in literature - but in this domain I have to search desperately...
Well, there is plenty of humor--or at least wit--in Beethoven, not to mention Haydn if you don't count him out as Austrian and semi-Hungarian.
I imagine that Adriano was thinking of humour in the operatic field.
Yes I did, Alan :-)
And this as far as the musical expression is concerned, and also not the libretti, which, obviously must be comic.