Online Encyclopedia
Franz von Suppé
The composer and conductor Franz von Suppé (April 18, 1819 - May 21, 1895) was born in Split, (Dalmatia), and died in Vienna. He is most famous for his operetta overtures, performed mostly at "light classics" concerts.
Life and education
Suppé was descended from a Belgian family that emigrated to Dalmatia, probably in the 18th century. A distant relative of Gaetano Donizetti, his original name was Francesco Ezechiele Ermenegildo, Cavaliere Suppé-Demelli. The "Cavaliere" in his name is a signifier of knighthood. He simplified and Germanized his name when in Vienna, and traded the "cav." of "cavaliere" to "von." Outside Germanic circles his name may appear on programs as Francesco Suppé-Demelli."
He spent his childhood in Zadar, where he had his first music lessons and began to compose at an early age. As a teenager in Cremona, Suppé studied flute and harmony. His first extant composition is a Roman Catholic Mass, which premiered at a Franciscan church in Zadar in 1832. He moved to Padua to study law, a field of study not chosen by him, but continued to study music. Later, in Vienna, after studying with Ignaz Seyfried and Simon Sechter, he conducted the Josephstadt theater, without pay at first, but with the opportunity to present his own operas there. Eventually, Suppé wrote music for over a hundred productions at Josephstadt as well as at Leopoldstadt , at the Theater an der Wien, and a theater at Baden. He also put on some landmark opera productions, such as the 1846 production of Meyerbeer's Les Huguenots with Jenny Lind. Suppé was also a singer, making his debut in the role of Dulcamara in Donizetti's L'Elisir d'Amore at the Ödenburg theater in 1842.
Works
Two of Suppé's comic operas have been performed at the Metropolitan Opera in New York, Boccaccio and Donna Juanita, but they failed to become repertoire works. He composed about 30 operettas and 180 farces, ballets, and other stage works. Though the bulk of Suppé's operas have nearly sunken to oblivion, the overtures, particularly Light Cavalry and Poet & Peasant, have survived and some of them have been used in all sorts of soundtracks for movies, cartoons, advertisements, and so on, in addition to being played at "pops" concerts. Suppé's operas are performed in Europe; Peter Branscombe, writing in the Grove Dictionary , characterizes Suppé's song Des ist mein Österreich as "Austria's second national song".
He retained links with his native Dalmatia, occasionally visiting Split, Zadar, and Šibenik. Some of his works are linked with Dalmatia, in particular his operetta The Mariner's Return , the action of which takes place in Hvar. After retiring from conducting, Suppé continued to write operas, but shifted his focus to sacred music. He also wrote a Requiem for theatre director Franz Pokorny , three Masses, songs, symphonies, and concert overtures.