Outer Vienna

Beethoven first came to know the Theater an der Wien when it was under the management of Emanuel Schikaneder, whose lasting claim to fame is that he wrote the libretto for Mozart's The Magic Flute, as well as directing its first performance and playing the role of Papageno.

In 1803 Schikaneder commissioned Beethoven to set his libretto for an opera called Vestas Feuer to music.

But - after setting a few numbers - Beethoven decided the text was too weak and abandoned the project.

Beethoven became composer-in-residence at the Theater an der Wien in January 1803, sharing an apartment in the building with his brother Carl.

On 5 April 1803 Beethoven was given a benefit concert at the theatre, giving the first performances of his Second Symphony, Third Piano Concerto and oratorio Christus am Ölberge, as well as performing the First Symphony.

The music director of the theatre, Ignaz Seyfried, turned pages for Beethoven in the Piano Concerto and left a splendid account of how terrifying he found it ..."I saw almost nothing but empty leaves; at the most on one page or the other a few Egyptian hieroglyphics wholly unintelligible to me scribbled down to serve as clues for him; for he played nearly all of the solo part from memory, since, as was so often the case, he had not had time to put it all down on paper. He gave me a secret glance whenever he was at the end of one of the invisible passages and my scarcely concealable anxiety not to miss the decisive moment amused him greatly and he laughed heartily at the jovial supper which we ate afterwards."

The Theater an der Wien was bought in 1804 by the manager of the Court Theatre, Baron Peter von Braun, with whom Beethoven had a stormy relationship. Baron Braun terminated Beethoven's contract with the theatre in 1804 but reinstated him later in the year.

On 7 April 1805 Beethoven conducted the first public performance of his Eroica Symphony at the Theater an der Wien.

Much of 1805 was taken up with the composition of the opera Leonore, which was not to reach its final flowering as Fidelio for another nine years.

Baron von Braun agreed to stage Leonore at the Theater an der Wien, and it had its first performance - after being delayed first when the censor banned it, and then, after the ban was lifted, by the delay in getting the music copied and rehearsed - on 20 November.

Exactly one week earlier the French army had occupied Vienna, Napoleon Bonaparte insulting the Viennese by taking up residence in the Emperor's summer residence, Schönbrunn Palace.

Most of the audience on the first night was made up of French officers, on whom the opera's essential theme of the triumph of freedom over oppression was not lost. They ordered the opera to be boycotted and it closed after only two more performances.

A revised version was staged at the Theater an der Wien in the following March, but Beethoven withdrew it, accusing Baron von Braun of withholding receipts.

On 22 December Beethoven gave a benefit concert at the theatre, consisting of the premieres of the Fifth and Sixth Symphonies, which he conducted. He also gave the first performance of the Fourth Piano Concerto and the Piano Fantasia.

The concert was a disaster; the Fantasia went off the rails after Beethoven - having improvised the introduction - forgot to drop a repeat. Other pieces were performed, making the concert last for four hours on a bitterly cold December night.

The Theater an der Wien was situated outside the Bastion, the city wall that surrounded Vienna, on the banks of the narrow river Wien that ran alongside the city. On the opposite side of the river was the open air fruit and vegetable market.

Beethoven frequently held concerts at the Theater an der Wien, preferring its rather more informal atmosphere to the austere Burgtheater, which was attached to the Hofburg Imperial Palace, and the Kärntnertortheater.

The Theater an der Wien is still in use today, being used mostly for musicals and operettas. The original facade (see picture at top) has been preserved.

© John Suchet