Abel Seyler
Theatre director · Directors · Lived 1730 to 1800 · aged 69
Abel Seyler was a Swiss-born theatre director and former merchant banker, who was regarded as one of the great theatre principals of 18th century Europe. He played a pivotal role in the development of German theatre and opera, and was considered "the leading patron of German theatre" in his lifetime.
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His birthplace Liestal in Switzerland (1780)
His second wife Friederike Sophie Seyler, Germany's most famous actress of the late 18th century, painted by Anton Graff
Seyler's long-time collaborator, the actor Konrad Ekhof, regarded as Germany's finest actor of the 18th century
Duchess Anna Amalia, noted patron of the arts, who invited Seyler and his company to her court in 1771
Seyler Company actress Esther Charlotte Brandes as "Ariadne" in Ariadne auf Naxos
The courtier Wolfgang Heribert von Dalberg, Seyler's collaborator during the Mannheim years
His wife Sophie Seyler's opera Huon and Amanda (or Oberon), a primary influence on the plot and characters of The Magic Flute
His son, the banker L.E. Seyler; in contrast to his father he became a highly respected bankerAbout this person
He supported the development of new works and experimental productions, helping to establish Hamburg as a center of theatrical innovation and to establish a publicly funded theater system in Germany. Working with some of Germany's foremost actors and playwrights of his era, he is credited with pioneering a new more realist style of acting, introducing Shakespeare to a German language audience, and with promoting the concept of a national theatre in the tradition of Ludvig Holberg, the Sturm und Drang playwrights, and serious German opera, becoming the "primary agent for change in the German opera scene" in the late 18th century. Already in his lifetime, he was described as "one of German art's most meritorious men."