Anglo-German Conflict for “Die wiege der Genie”: G. Herbert Rodwell and the German Opera Invasion, 1824–1833

Abstract

The arrival of Carl Maria von Weber’s Der Freischütz in London, in 1824, was a seismic event in the history of British theatre, comparable to the sensation of The Beggar’s Opera almost a century earlier. “[N]o dramatic production ever made a more sudden, a greater, or a more lasting impression on the public,”2 George Hogarth concluded, some years later. Der Freischütz first appeared at the English Opera House in July 1824, but seven other London theatres quickly moved to stage their own English adaptations in the next four months, including the “big two” patent theatres, Covent Garden and Drury Lane: almost everyone who attended the theatre in London saw Weber’s work in some form or other. As Christina Fuhrmann has recently demonstrated in a groundbreaking study, “Der Freischütz altered virtually every aspect of London theatrical life”: