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MOZART, SÜβMAYR, AND MUSICAL PROPOGANDA

completely sold out in advance. By 1804, one year after And with hope that you will be Mozart’s
the composer’s death, that same theater had logged 113 replacement for him. 30
performances, making it “one of the greatest box-offi ce

24
successes of the era.” The exceptional appeal of the History has not fulfilled that hope. Süßmayr’s obscuri-
opera kept it in Austrian and German theatres until the ty has become almost complete with the exception of
25
mid-nineteenth century. his controversial work on the Requiem. His only known
Contemporary newspaper reports were eff usive in portrait, made during his tenure as Kapellmeister of
their praise. The Wiener Zeitung wrote of the public re- the National-Singspiel theater, appears to have been de-
sponse to the opera: stroyed during World War II, so we don’t even know
31
what he looked like.
The boxes are always booked for 8 days and Details of his last days are sketchy and bear a striking
everyone drives and runs toward the Wieden- resemblance to those of Mozart. The offi cial Viennese
er theater. This is proof that Vienna’s audience Magistrat references his death with dry administrative
surely appreciates true contributions. And one tone: “On the 17th of September, Süßmayr Hr. Franz,
can justly say: that this opera is the only of its Kapellmeister at the Imperial Royal Court Theater, sin-
kind. 26 gle, born in Schwanenstadt in Upper Austria, residing
in House No. 1269 on the Wasserkunstbastei, of Lungen-
The report concludes with the highest praise that sucht [pulmonary consumption], 37 years.” H. C. Rob-
32
could be accorded any Viennese composer of the day: bins Landon noted his death in passing while describ-
“The immortalized Mozart himself would not have ing the musical goings-on in Vienna during the fall of

written more fitting music had he been in Herr Süß- 1803: “On 17 September, Franz Xaver Süssmayer [sic]
mayr’s place.” Following the 1795 Prague premiere in died of consumption, in Vienna.” That this promising
33
an Italian translation, the Allgemeines Europäisches Journal composer who moved in the enlightened musical circles
27
“set the opera on a par with Die Zauberfl öte.” Joseph of Vienna for years passed from the stage at the age of
Richter humorously wrote in his Eipeldauer Briefen that thirty-seven in such an unremarkable way is remarkable
he didn’t need a ticket, “for already one hears the songs in itself. He died at his lodgings attended by his old-
from it in every street, and in a few days the tavern mu- er sister, Mary Anna, who had moved in to help with
34
sicians will be playing the whole opera to their brethren the housekeeping. In a fi nal ironic parallel, Süßmayr
for a single Kreutzer.” 28 was buried in a pauper’s grave in the same cemetery, St.
This success, along with the influence of his friend Marx, as Mozart.

and later teacher, Antonio Salieri, was likely responsible
for his earning the coveted appointment as the music di-
rector at the newly established National-Singspiel The- The Librettist
ater in Vienna, a post that he held from the theater’s Johann Rautenstrauch (1746-1801) was a prominent
29
debut performance on May 11, 1795 until his death. Viennese poet and “controversialist” who champi-
35
The esteem in which he was held by the opera-going oned the political and social reforms of Joseph II; thus,
public is clear in an ode to Süßmayr published in The his poetic output tilted heavily toward the political. He
Wiener Zeitung: authored plays, his most successful being a 1773 com-
edy, Der Jurist und der Bauer [The Lawyer and the Farmer],
When Mozart died, the genius of the Ger- that was “popular not only in Vienna, but at almost
man Singspiel all theatrical centres in Germany: Mannheim, Berlin,
wrapped himself in a shroud of mourning. Hamburg, Weimar.” 36
Then your strings rang out, and the Singspiel Süßmayr and Rautenstrauch collaborated on anoth-
breathes, er politically themed cantata in 1800, which was not
Filled with life again, nearly so successful as Der Retter in Gefahr. Landon quotes

30 CHORAL JOURNAL April 2021 Volume 61 Number 9