Der Widerspänstigen Zähmung (also: Der Widerspenstigen Zähmung) (English: The Taming of the Shrew) is a comic opera

Opera

Opera is an art form in which singers and musicians perform a dramatic work combining text and musical score, usually in a theatrical setting. Opera incorporates many of the elements of spoken theatre, such as acting, scenery, and costumes and sometimes includes dance...

 in four acts by the German

Germany

Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...

 composer Hermann Goetz

Hermann Goetz

Hermann Gustav Goetz was a German composer.After studying in Berlin, he moved to Switzerland in 1863. After ten years spent as a critic, pianist and conductor as well, he spent the last three years of his life composing...

. It was written between 1868 and 1872 and first performed in Mannheim

Mannheim

Mannheim is a city in southwestern Germany. With about 315,000 inhabitants, Mannheim is the second-largest city in the Bundesland of Baden-Württemberg, following the capital city of Stuttgart....

, Germany on 11 October 1874 under the conductor Ernst Frank. The libretto

Libretto

A libretto is the text used in an extended musical work such as an opera, operetta, masque, oratorio, cantata, or musical. The term "libretto" is also sometimes used to refer to the text of major liturgical works, such as mass, requiem, and sacred cantata, or even the story line of a...

, by Joseph Widmann and the composer, is based on Shakespeare

William Shakespeare

William Shakespeare was an English poet and playwright, widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world's pre-eminent dramatist. He is often called England's national poet and the "Bard of Avon"...

's The Taming of the Shrew

The Taming of the Shrew

The Taming of the Shrew is a comedy by William Shakespeare, believed to have been written between 1590 and 1591.The play begins with a framing device, often referred to as the Induction, in which a mischievous nobleman tricks a drunken tinker named Sly into believing he is actually a nobleman himself...

. The style of the opera shows Goetz turning away from the musical ideas of Richard Wagner

Richard Wagner

Wilhelm Richard Wagner was a German composer, conductor, theatre director, philosopher, music theorist, poet, essayist and writer primarily known for his operas...

 towards the classicism of Mozart

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart , baptismal name Johannes Chrysostomus Wolfgangus Theophilus Mozart , was a prolific and influential composer of the Classical era. He composed over 600 works, many acknowledged as pinnacles of symphonic, concertante, chamber, piano, operatic, and choral music...

. Der Widerspänstigen Zähmung was a huge success, not only in Germany but in the United States

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

 and in Great Britain

United Kingdom

The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...

, where it received high praise from George Bernard Shaw

George Bernard Shaw

George Bernard Shaw was an Irish playwright and a co-founder of the London School of Economics. Although his first profitable writing was music and literary criticism, in which capacity he wrote many highly articulate pieces of journalism, his main talent was for drama, and he wrote more than 60...

.

Roles

Role	Voice type	Premiere cast, October 11, 1874 (Conductor: Ernst Frank)
Baptista, a rich gentleman of Padua	bass	Karl Ditt
Katharine, Baptista's daughter	soprano Soprano A soprano is a voice type with a vocal range from approximately middle C to "high A" in choral music, or to "soprano C" or higher in operatic music. In four-part chorale style harmony, the soprano takes the highest part, which usually encompasses the melody...	Ottilie Ottiker
Bianka (Bianca), Baptista's daughter	soprano	Ida Auer-Herbeck
Petruchio, a gentleman from Verona	baritone Baritone Baritone is a type of male singing voice that lies between the bass and tenor voices. It is the most common male voice. Originally from the Greek , meaning deep sounding, music for this voice is typically written in the range from the second F below middle C to the F above middle C Baritone (or...	Eduard Schlosser
Grumio, Petruchio's servant	bass
Lucentio, Bianca's suitor	tenor Tenor The tenor is a type of male singing voice and is the highest male voice within the modal register. The typical tenor voice lies between C3, the C one octave below middle C, to the A above middle C in choral music, and up to high C in solo work. The low extreme for tenors is roughly B2...	Carl Slovak
Hortensio, Bianca's suitor	baritone	August Knapp
Hortensio's wife	mezzo-soprano Mezzo-soprano A mezzo-soprano is a type of classical female singing voice whose range lies between the soprano and the contralto singing voices, usually extending from the A below middle C to the A two octaves above...
A tailor	tenor

Recordings

• Der Widerspänstigen Zähmung soloists, Dresden State Opera Chorus and Orchestra, conducted by Karl Elmendorff
  Karl Elmendorff
  Karl Eduard Maria Elmendorff was a German opera conductor. Born in Düsseldorf, Elmendorff studied music at the Cologne College of Music and Hochschule für Musik Köln from 1913 to 1916 under Fritz Steinbach and Hermann Abendroth...
  
  (Urania, 1944)

Sources

• The Viking Opera Guide ed. Holden (Viking, 1993)
• Amadeus online (Italian)