Friederike Sophie Seyler[a] (1738, Dresden â€" 22 November 1789,
Schleswig; née Sparmann, formerly married Hensel) was a German
actress, playwright and librettist. Alongside Friederike Caroline
Neuber, she was widely considered Germany's greatest actress of the
18th century; Gotthold Ephraim Lessing described her in his Hamburg
Dramaturgy as "incontestably one of the best actresses that German
theatre has ever seen."The granddaughter of the famous architect
Matthäus Daniel Pöppelmann, she ran away from an abusive uncle under
the threat of a forced marriage to join the theatre at the age of
sixteen in 1754. She established herself as one of Germany's leading
actresses in the 1760s and was acclaimed for her portrayal of
passionate, majestic, tragic heroines. From 1767 she was
professionally and personally associated with the theatre director
Abel Seyler, whom she married in 1772, as the leading actress of the
Hamburg National Theatre and later of the Seyler Theatre Company. With
Seyler she led an itinerant life until her death, performing widely
across the German-speaking realm. She also stayed for several periods
at the Vienna Burgtheater between 1757 and 1772. She was associated
with all the leading theatres of her era: Hamburg, Vienna, Weimar,
Gotha and Mannheim.She is regarded as one of the most important female
playwrights of the 18th century, and her renown as an actress
contributed to the popularity of her plays. Her libretto for the opera
Oberon (originally titled Huon and Amanda) was a major inspiration for
Emanuel Schikaneder's libretto for the opera The Magic Flute; a
lightly adapted version of Seyler's opera was the first opera
performed by Schikaneder's troupe at their new theatre, the Theater
auf der Wieden, and established a tradition within the Schikaneder
company of fairy-tale operas that was to culminate two years later in
The Magic Flute, which shared several plots, characters, and singers
with Seyler's Oberon.She was born as Friederike Sophie Sparmann in
Dresden as the only child of the doctor Johann Wilhelm Sparmann and
Luise Catharina Pöppelmann; her grandfather was the famous architect
Matthäus Daniel Pöppelmann. She came from a broken home; her parents
divorced when she was eleven years old, and her mother joined a
convent. At the age of twelve she was sent to live with an abusive
maternal uncle, who treated her so badly that she ran away to another
relative, who died already in 1753. In order to escape an arranged
marriage that her uncle had set up, she ran away from him to join the
theatre at the age of sixteen in 1754.
Schleswig; née Sparmann, formerly married Hensel) was a German
actress, playwright and librettist. Alongside Friederike Caroline
Neuber, she was widely considered Germany's greatest actress of the
18th century; Gotthold Ephraim Lessing described her in his Hamburg
Dramaturgy as "incontestably one of the best actresses that German
theatre has ever seen."The granddaughter of the famous architect
Matthäus Daniel Pöppelmann, she ran away from an abusive uncle under
the threat of a forced marriage to join the theatre at the age of
sixteen in 1754. She established herself as one of Germany's leading
actresses in the 1760s and was acclaimed for her portrayal of
passionate, majestic, tragic heroines. From 1767 she was
professionally and personally associated with the theatre director
Abel Seyler, whom she married in 1772, as the leading actress of the
Hamburg National Theatre and later of the Seyler Theatre Company. With
Seyler she led an itinerant life until her death, performing widely
across the German-speaking realm. She also stayed for several periods
at the Vienna Burgtheater between 1757 and 1772. She was associated
with all the leading theatres of her era: Hamburg, Vienna, Weimar,
Gotha and Mannheim.She is regarded as one of the most important female
playwrights of the 18th century, and her renown as an actress
contributed to the popularity of her plays. Her libretto for the opera
Oberon (originally titled Huon and Amanda) was a major inspiration for
Emanuel Schikaneder's libretto for the opera The Magic Flute; a
lightly adapted version of Seyler's opera was the first opera
performed by Schikaneder's troupe at their new theatre, the Theater
auf der Wieden, and established a tradition within the Schikaneder
company of fairy-tale operas that was to culminate two years later in
The Magic Flute, which shared several plots, characters, and singers
with Seyler's Oberon.She was born as Friederike Sophie Sparmann in
Dresden as the only child of the doctor Johann Wilhelm Sparmann and
Luise Catharina Pöppelmann; her grandfather was the famous architect
Matthäus Daniel Pöppelmann. She came from a broken home; her parents
divorced when she was eleven years old, and her mother joined a
convent. At the age of twelve she was sent to live with an abusive
maternal uncle, who treated her so badly that she ran away to another
relative, who died already in 1753. In order to escape an arranged
marriage that her uncle had set up, she ran away from him to join the
theatre at the age of sixteen in 1754.
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