The MD, pianist and conductor Wolfgang Ellenberger was friend of Manfred App who invited him for the performance of “Das Labyrinth” in Salzburg in 2012.
After App was no more retrievable Ellenberger re-published the opera using all 8 manuscripts available world-wide and translated the opera to Italian and English to promote it internationally.
Manfred App (* 1948) is a German music publisher.
He was the first re-editor of the opera “The Labyrinth.” After his work was lost, Wolfgang Ellenberg republished the opera on April 6, 2024.
App studied German, theology, social sciences, and singing (bass-baritone) with Kurt Moll, among others.
Since the 1990s, he has researched Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and his circle. He has discovered music-historical sources in smaller collections that became accessible to the West for the first time after 1989, particularly in the Czech Republic, and has made them accessible through his own publications.
He has particularly researched the context of The Magic Flute. He discovered not only mass compositions with melodies from The Magic Flute, but also operas by other composers associated with The Magic Flute and by Emanuel Schikaneder.
This included research and the discovery of Babilon’s Pyramids and The Second Part of The Magic Flute, The Labyrinth or the Struggle with the Elements, by Peter von Winter. App found the glued and sewn score of the opera in the Berlin State Library and published it in a first edition in 2002.
This score and the accompanying orchestral performance material were then performed by the Chemnitz Opera under the direction of Fabrice Bollon in 2002. In 2012, there was a heavily abridged performance at the Salzburg Festival under the direction of Ivor Bolton, which was also released on DVD.
Manfred App was friends with Wolfgang Ellenberger and invited him to perform at the Salzburg Festival in 2012.
Manfred App – Wikipedia
Peter Winter, later Peter von Winter, (baptised 28 August 1754 – 17 October 1825)[1] was a German violinist, conductor and composer, especially of operas. He began his career as a player at the Mannheim court, and advanced to conductor. When the court moved to Munich, he followed and later became kapellmeister of the opera there. His opera Das Labyrinth, a sequel to Mozart’s Die Zauberflöte, was premiered in Vienna in 1798, and his Maometto at La Scala in Milan in 1817. His work has been regarded as a bridge between Mozart and Weber in the development of German opera.
Winter was born in Mannheim. He was a child prodigy on the violin, who occasionally played in the Mannheim court orchestra,[2] from age ten, both violin and double bass.[3] He studied violin in Mannheim with Wilhelm Cramer and Thaddäus Hampel, and later composition with Georg Joseph Vogler.[4] Winter was engaged as a violinist in the orchestra from 1776.[3] He also conducted from 1777.[4] When the court moved to Munich in 1778, he became conductor of the orchestra, and met Mozart for the first time.[1] He married Marianne Grosser that year, the daughter of a tailor.[4] In 1781/82, Winter was sent to Vienna to study on a scholarship with Antonio Salieri, meeting Mozart again.[4] He became director of the court theatre in Munich at which point he started to write stage works, at first ballets and melodramas.[3] He was promoted to vice kapellmeister in 1787 and to kapellmeister in 1798, holding the position for most of his life.
Winter composed more than thirty operas between 1778 and 1820, and only few were unsuccessful. His most popular work, Das unterbrochene Opferfest (The interrupted sacrificial feast), was produced in 1796 in Vienna leading to his recognition as an opera composer.[4] He composed two operas to librettos by Emanuel Schikaneder, Die Pyramiden von Babylon and Das Labyrinth, oder Der Kampf mit den Elementen, a sequel to Mozart’s Die Zauberflöte which was premiered at the Theater auf der Wieden on 12 June 1798.
Winter returned to Munich in 1798. Five years later he visited London, where he produced La grotta di Calipso in 1803, Il ratto di Proserpina in 1804 (both to librettos by Lorenzo Da Ponte), and Zaira in 1805, with great success. His Maometto, composed in 1817 and premiered at La Scala in Milan, is occasionally revived, and was recorded.[5] His last opera, Der Sänger und der Schneider, was premiered in Munich in 1820. His operas were produced also in Berlin, Amsterdam, Paris and Moscow.[3]
In 1811, he founded the Musikalische Akademie in Munich, an association which is remembered in the Akademiekonzerte of the Bavarian State Orchestra. Besides his works for the stage, he composed concertos for wind instruments and orchestra and, beginning in 1820, sacred music. He gave voice lessons and published a Vollständige Singschule (Complete school of singing) in 1825.
Winter was knighted on 23 March 1814. He died in Munich at age 71.
1803 Neuinszenierung im Theater an der Wien
world premiere 12. June 1798 im Wiedner Theater (Wien)
LOC – Library of Congress
THIS was a surprise! wikipedia said the Darmstadt copy had been burnt in the war. But thanks to a hint of the DNB – (German National Library) I found the Darmstadt copy in Washington!
HAB – Herzog August Bibliothek D-Wolfenbüttel
