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