Into the Archives with Hasse
In the summer of 1998, I made my first trip into the archives. I was a graduate student, a budding music historian. I had arrived in Dresden, which still bore the scars of its firebombing in the waning days of World War II and 40 years as part of East Germany. My first inkling of the German propensity to order everything, to catalog, arrange, and quantify, came in a walk that took me to the husk of the Frauenkirche, which had been the St. Peter’s of Lutheranism, a central landmark in the city, with its massive dome. All that remained standing were two wobbly looking side walls, and a statue of Luther on a plinth before them. Nearby were what seemed like miles of metal shelves, with every piece of rubble from the bombed-out church arranged and numbered in anticipation of reconstruction. (The rebuilt church finally reopened in 2005, and visitors to Dresden today find few signs of 1945–89 anywhere in the city.)
The day after that walk, I arrived at the Hauptstadtarchiv (basically, the municipal archives of the capital city— Dresden was the capital of the Kingdom of Saxony, and is now the capital of one of Germany’s federal states), interviewed with someone who seemed important, and was invited to start my research there. I was in search of remnants of Dresden’s illustrious operatic past—not the age of Weber and Wagner, but a century earlier, when Johann Adolph Hasse plied his trade there as Kapellmeister, and later Oberkapellmeister, for more than three decades, from 1730 to 1763. The records concerning his operas were bound in files (Akten), one for each opera, stored chronologically. I would request them, one at a time, from an archivist, and they would arrive soon after at my table in the reading room. Each file contained all of the correspondence concerning the production of an opera; information about budgets, casts, and musicians in the chorus and orchestra; set and costume designs; a copy of the printed libretto and the score; and even an exemplar of the brightly colored ticket that had gained one admittance to the court theater for a performance — everything carefully cataloged and stored. Unlike American archives and libraries, who insist you wear cloth gloves and sit in special, climate-controlled chambers with specific lighting to look at rare books and documents, the archive in Dresden kept the windows open to let in fresh air and let you touch and handle everything. The smell was unique, very earthy, and I remember having an allergic reaction to what I’m sure was mold—a woman working across the table from me noticed my Schnupfen (sniffles) and gave me an embroidered handkerchief that I’ve kept as a souvenir.
My memories of the archive came flooding back when I was in the audience for Haymarket’s recent performance of Hasse’s La Semele. Knowing that the performance was only possible because of meticulous work and scholarship in another archive, one of the most famous musical collections in the world, the library of the Gesellschaft der Musikfreunde (Philharmonic Society) in Vienna, rekindled my appreciation for the academics and performers who bring the past back to life through that work. Dresden’s operatic splendor unfolded in front of me thanks to those records, and learning that those Hasse operas so carefully detailed in those files had later taken Berlin by storm sparked my interest in learning how that came to pass, and further months in archives and libraries in Berlin.
La Semele predates Hasse’s time in Dresden; it comes from an age when he was learning his craft in Naples, one of the early 18th century’s operatic centers. It wasn’t an opera, but rather a serenata, a work for private performance, in the home of a wealthy merchant or nobleman—we can surmise from the circumstances around other, similar works from his Neapolitan sojourn that Hasse wrote it for the banker and royal counselor Carlo Carmignano. Such serenate were typically one-and-done works, and many have not come down to us, victims of their disposable nature. Hasse’s work was different; the performance made enough of an impression that the Austrian Imperial representative to the court of Naples had a presentation copy of the work made for a music-loving count in Jarmeritz, then part of the Austrian Empire, now Jaroměřice in the Czech Republic. In the 19th century, several collections found their way into the library of the Gesellschaft der Musikfreunde, which was founded in 1812. These included more than 20,000 manuscripts donated by the Archduke Rudolph in 1831; donations from Beethoven pupil Carl Czerny, music theorist Simon Schechter, and Ludwig von Köchel, cataloguer of Mozart’s works; and, later in the 19th century, the acquisition of the Brahms Collection, which not only contains most of Brahms’s manuscripts and letters, but also includes rare works from the 17th and 18th centuries, as well as works by Mozart, Schubert, and Schumann.
Vienna was an important city for Hasse, and it’s only fitting that manuscripts and fair copies of many of his non-Dresden works now find themselves there. After his time in Dresden, he settled in Vienna for nearly a decade, composing his final operas for the imperial court of Maria Theresa and her son, Joseph II: Piramo e Tisbe and Ruggiero, in 1768 and 1771, respectively. They were the last exemplars of a long tradition of Italian opera seria, a tradition of which Hasse was, in his lifetime, the most famous steward—even better-known than Handel—with his works staged and celebrated in every capital on the continent. But time and taste moved on. And Hasse knew it. 1771 was the year of his final opera, and it was also the year he heard the teenaged Mozart in Vienna, declaring presciently, “This boy will cause us all to be forgotten.” Hasse left Vienna for Venice two years later, spending his final decade in relative obscurity, writing the occasional sacred work and teaching singing and composition. Thankfully, his music comes down to us in manuscripts in libraries and archives in the cities where Hasse was valued the most, there for scholars and musicians to rediscover and revive—even if the mold causes the odd sniffle or two.
About the author
John Mangum is the General Director, President & CEO of Lyric Opera of Chicago, the fifth in the company’s history. Having joined Lyric in the fall of 2024, he brings more than two decades of leadership experience in the arts, most recently as Executive Director/CEO of the Houston Symphony, where he served from 2018 to 2024.
During his tenure at Houston, the organization raised significant funds to renovate its hall, strengthened its balance sheet by $60 million, appointed a new music director, and performed in-person and virtually for more than 1.1 million people during the pandemic season.
Mangum grew up in the San Francisco Bay Area and began his career at the Los Angeles Philharmonic. He subsequently held senior artistic planning roles at several of the country’s leading orchestras—the San Francisco Symphony, the New York Philharmonic, and the Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra. Major initiatives at these orchestras included concert stagings of Fidelio, Peter Grimes, Bluebeard’s Castle, Ligeti’s Le Grand Macabre, John Cage’s Song Books, West Side Story, Company, and Amadeus. He also served as President and Artistic Director of the Philharmonic Society of Orange County, overseeing all aspects of the Society’s operations, including the successful completion of its first-ever endowment campaign.
Mangum is an alumnus of the Impact Program for Arts Leaders at Stanford’s Graduate School of Business. He holds a Ph.D. in history with a concentration in musicology, in addition to master’s and bachelor’s degrees in history, from the University of California, Los Angeles. His scholarly work looks at the intersection of Italian opera and political power in 18th-century German-speaking Central Europe.
About The Haymarket Review: This digital publication including thoughts about the work produced by Haymarket is designed to deepen our connection to audiences, nurture and feed audience curiosity about historical performance, offer critical opinions and thoughtful reflections on our performances, and provide a forum for Haymarket and its audience to connect through sharing insights, opinions, learning, and expertise.