The world premiere of "Hänsel und Gretel", 1893
One of the most performed operas in the German repertoire was heard for the first time in Weimar, conducted by a 29-year-old assistant Kapellmeister.
In 1893 the Weimar court theatre gave the first performance anywhere of Engelbert Humperdinck's "Hänsel und Gretel". The conductor was Richard Strauss, then in his fourth year as the house's second Kapellmeister.
A small house with the right conductor
Weimar did not get this premiere because it was an important opera centre. It got it because Strauss was there. He had come in 1889 as second Kapellmeister — not the house's senior conductor — and he stayed until 1894; in that short window the theatre gave the first performance of Humperdinck's opera and, the following year, of Strauss's own first opera "Guntram".[1] Two world premieres in two years from a house whose orchestra had spent the previous decades arguing about Liszt's legacy.
What that means when you stand outside the theatre
It happened in the earlier building. The theatre on the Theaterplatz today was commissioned in 1906 and inaugurated in 1908,[2] so the hall that first heard "Hänsel und Gretel" is not the one in the photograph — the same caveat that applies to the "Lohengrin" premiere of 1850. What survives on the square is the institution and the orchestra, not the room.
Sources
- Die Staatskapelle Weimar — das Orchester — Deutsches Nationaltheater und Staatskapelle Weimar, retrieved 29 August 2026
- Geschichte des Deutschen Nationaltheaters — Deutsches Nationaltheater und Staatskapelle Weimar, retrieved 29 August 2026
Historical figures
Historical figures
1864–1949 • composer • conductor
He conducted it, in his fourth year as the house's second Kapellmeister — the most widely performed work he ever gave a first performance to was somebody else's.
Historic sites
Historic sites
Theaterplatz 2, 99423 Weimar
The premiere was given by this house, then the Hoftheater, in the building that preceded the present one.
Period
1832–1918
The last great musical event of the period, forty-three years after the "Lohengrin" premiere and in the same institution.