Robert Stoepel
Encyclopedia
Robert Auguste Stoepel was a German-born American composer and conductor.
.) After he graduated from the Berlin Conservatory of music, he went to Paris where he graduated from the Conservatoire de Paris
, where his teachers included Luigi Cherubini
, Fromental Halévy
, and Friedrich Kalkbrenner
He apparently got his start at composing incidental music for dramas there, being one of three composers who contributed to a stage production of Monte-Cristo, a play by Alexandre Dumas and Auguste Maquet
which premiered on February 3, 1848 at the Théâtre Historique. According to his obituary in the Musical Times, while in Paris he wrote two operas, Indiana and Charlemagne. In an 1849 article in the Musical World it was noted that he was negotiating with John Medex Maddox to produce his opera, La sentinelle perdu, for the Princess Theatre in London, and that he had already composed a ballet which was performed at the Paris Opera
.
In 1850, impresario Max Maretzek
brought him to New York City
. His first association was with Wallack's Theatre
, where he wrote and conducted incidental music for plays. In 1856 the New York Times reported: "The orchestra of this establishment [i.e., Wallack's Theatre ] is deliciously neat and effective, and the compositions it plays are thoroughly artistic. Mr. Robert Stoepel, the conductor, is one of the best informed musicians in the country, and the evidence of taste and knowledge are never absent. He has succeeded in making the musical department an important feature of the entertainments, and if the orchestra always plays as well as it did on Saturday night we are not at all surprised thereat."
He wrote incidental music for all of the plays written by Dion Boucicault
during his stay in New York from 1854 through 1860. He was the conductor of many New York productions of Offenbach
operettas, including La Grande-Duchesse de Gérolstein
, La Vie Parisienne
, Fleur de Thé, and Geneviève de Brabant
.
His most ambitious compositional effort was Hiawatha based on Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
's poem The Song of Hiawatha
. Subtitled "an Indian Symphony," this was a work symphonic in proportions with vocal soloists and a part for narrator. It was first performed by the Mendelsson Union with soloists Mrs. I.I. Harwood (who alternated between the two female roles of Nokomis and Minnehaha), Harrison Millard (Hiawatha), J. Q. Wetherbee (who sang the Great Spirit and the Arrow-Maker) with recitations by the composer's wife Matilda Heron, on February 21, 1859 at the Boston Theatre
in Boston. It was performed in New York shortly thereafter. Hiawatha had its London premiere on February 11, 1861.Pisani, p. 57.
He stayed at Wallack's Theatre through the 1860s. He also worked for the Winter Garden Theatre (1850)
. After it burnt down in 1867, he worked for Daly's Fifth Avenue Theatre
. There he composed and conducted incidental music for the stage productions The Hurricane, Divorce, Frou-Frou, Man and Wife, and Fernande.
Sometime in the 1870s he moved to London where he was was engaged by Henry Miller
. He composed incidental music for all of Miller's first successes. When Miller came to New York, Stoepel found that Miller was still using his music, so he filed a suit against him and settled for $2,000.
During the 1880-81 season he was musical director of the Adelphi Theatre in London. While in London he wrote an opera called Aldershot.
Around 1884 he became deaf, and apparently moved back to New York. At the time of his death he was working on two more operas, Unita and The Mahdi. The Musical Times obituary mentions that at once time he amassed a fortune of ₤20,000, but lost ₤12,000 during a real estate panic in New York.
. Stoepel and Heron were divorced in 1869. They had one child, Helen Wallace Stoepel, born in 1863, better known as Bijou Heron
, who became an actress herself, and married Robert Stoepel's employer, Henry Miller.
At the end of his life, Robert Auguste Stoepel had been living at 40 West 24th Street. He died at daughter's house, 70 West 37th Street, on October 1, 1887.
Biography
He was born Auguste Stoepel in Berlin, 1821. Because his father had a reputation as a court musician, he adopted his forename. His sister, Hélène Stöpel, was noted as a "charming and talented pianist." (She later married the composer William Vincent WallaceWilliam Vincent Wallace
William Vincent Wallace was an Irish composer and musician.-Early life:Wallace was born at Colbeck Street, Waterford, Ireland. Both parents were Irish, his father, of County Mayo, was a regimental bandmaster....
.) After he graduated from the Berlin Conservatory of music, he went to Paris where he graduated from the Conservatoire de Paris
Conservatoire de Paris
The Conservatoire de Paris is a college of music and dance founded in 1795, now situated in the avenue Jean Jaurès in the 19th arrondissement of Paris, France...
, where his teachers included Luigi Cherubini
Luigi Cherubini
Luigi Cherubini was an Italian composer who spent most of his working life in France. His most significant compositions are operas and sacred music. Beethoven regarded Cherubini as the greatest of his contemporaries....
, Fromental Halévy
Fromental Halévy
Jacques-François-Fromental-Élie Halévy, usually known as Fromental Halévy , was a French composer. He is known today largely for his opera La Juive.-Early career:...
, and Friedrich Kalkbrenner
Friedrich Kalkbrenner
Friedrich Wilhelm Michael Kalkbrenner was a German pianist, composer, piano teacher and piano manufacturer who spent most of his life in England and France. Before the advent of Frédéric Chopin, Sigismond Thalberg and Franz Liszt, Kalkbrenner was by many considered to be the foremost pianist in...
He apparently got his start at composing incidental music for dramas there, being one of three composers who contributed to a stage production of Monte-Cristo, a play by Alexandre Dumas and Auguste Maquet
Auguste Maquet
Auguste Maquet was a French author, best known as the chief collaborator of French novelist Alexandre Dumas, père, co-writing such works as The Count of Monte Cristo and The Three Musketeers....
which premiered on February 3, 1848 at the Théâtre Historique. According to his obituary in the Musical Times, while in Paris he wrote two operas, Indiana and Charlemagne. In an 1849 article in the Musical World it was noted that he was negotiating with John Medex Maddox to produce his opera, La sentinelle perdu, for the Princess Theatre in London, and that he had already composed a ballet which was performed at the Paris Opera
Paris Opera
The Paris Opera is the primary opera company of Paris, France. It was founded in 1669 by Louis XIV as the Académie d'Opéra and shortly thereafter was placed under the leadership of Jean-Baptiste Lully and renamed the Académie Royale de Musique...
.
In 1850, impresario Max Maretzek
Max Maretzek
Max Maretzek was a Moravian-born composer, conductor, and impresario active in the United States and Latin America.-European career:...
brought him to New York City
New York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...
. His first association was with Wallack's Theatre
Wallack's Theatre
Wallack’s Theatre , located on 254 West 42nd Street in New York, United States, was opened on December 5, 1904 by Oscar Hammerstein I. Wallack’s was Hammerstein’s 8th production theatre and was originally known as the "Lew Fields'", a name that Hammerstein gave it in recognition of his favourite...
, where he wrote and conducted incidental music for plays. In 1856 the New York Times reported: "The orchestra of this establishment [i.e., Wallack's Theatre ] is deliciously neat and effective, and the compositions it plays are thoroughly artistic. Mr. Robert Stoepel, the conductor, is one of the best informed musicians in the country, and the evidence of taste and knowledge are never absent. He has succeeded in making the musical department an important feature of the entertainments, and if the orchestra always plays as well as it did on Saturday night we are not at all surprised thereat."
He wrote incidental music for all of the plays written by Dion Boucicault
Dion Boucicault
Dionysius Lardner Boursiquot , commonly known as Dion Boucicault, was an Irish actor and playwright famed for his melodramas. By the later part of the 19th century, Boucicault had become known on both sides of the Atlantic as one of the most successful actor-playwright-managers then in the...
during his stay in New York from 1854 through 1860. He was the conductor of many New York productions of Offenbach
Jacques Offenbach
Jacques Offenbach was a Prussian-born French composer, cellist and impresario. He is remembered for his nearly 100 operettas of the 1850s–1870s and his uncompleted opera The Tales of Hoffmann. He was a powerful influence on later composers of the operetta genre, particularly Johann Strauss, Jr....
operettas, including La Grande-Duchesse de Gérolstein
La Grande-Duchesse de Gérolstein
La Grande-Duchesse de Gérolstein is an opéra bouffe , in three acts and four tableaux by Jacques Offenbach to an original French libretto by Henri Meilhac and Ludovic Halévy...
, La Vie Parisienne
La Vie Parisienne
La Vie Parisienne was a magazine in France founded in 1863 and popular at the turn-of-the-twentieth century. It was originally intended as a guide to upper class and artistic life in Paris , but it soon evolved into a mildly risqué erotic publication...
, Fleur de Thé, and Geneviève de Brabant
Geneviève de Brabant
Geneviève de Brabant is an opéra bouffe, or operetta, by Jacques Offenbach, first performed in Paris in 1859. The plot is based on the medieval legend of Genevieve of Brabant....
.
His most ambitious compositional effort was Hiawatha based on Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow was an American poet and educator whose works include "Paul Revere's Ride", The Song of Hiawatha, and Evangeline...
's poem The Song of Hiawatha
The Song of Hiawatha
The Song of Hiawatha is an 1855 epic poem, in trochaic tetrameter, by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, featuring an Indian hero and loosely based on legends and ethnography of the Ojibwe and other Native American peoples contained in Algic Researches and additional writings of Henry Rowe Schoolcraft...
. Subtitled "an Indian Symphony," this was a work symphonic in proportions with vocal soloists and a part for narrator. It was first performed by the Mendelsson Union with soloists Mrs. I.I. Harwood (who alternated between the two female roles of Nokomis and Minnehaha), Harrison Millard (Hiawatha), J. Q. Wetherbee (who sang the Great Spirit and the Arrow-Maker) with recitations by the composer's wife Matilda Heron, on February 21, 1859 at the Boston Theatre
Boston Theatre
The Boston Theatre was a theatre in Boston, Massachusetts.-Further reading:* Eugene Tompkins. History of the Boston Theatre 1854-1901. Houghton Mifflin, 1908. -External links:...
in Boston. It was performed in New York shortly thereafter. Hiawatha had its London premiere on February 11, 1861.Pisani, p. 57.
He stayed at Wallack's Theatre through the 1860s. He also worked for the Winter Garden Theatre (1850)
Winter Garden Theatre
The Winter Garden Theatre is a Broadway theatre located at 1634 Broadway in midtown Manhattan.-History:The structure was built by William Kissam Vanderbilt in 1896 to be the American Horse Exchange....
. After it burnt down in 1867, he worked for Daly's Fifth Avenue Theatre
Fifth Avenue Theatre
Fifth Avenue Theatre was a Broadway theatre in New York City in the United States located at 31 West 28th Street and Broadway. It was demolished in 1939....
. There he composed and conducted incidental music for the stage productions The Hurricane, Divorce, Frou-Frou, Man and Wife, and Fernande.
Sometime in the 1870s he moved to London where he was was engaged by Henry Miller
Henry Miller (actor)
Henry Miller was an English-born American actor, director, theatrical producer and manager.Born as John Pegge in London, Miller's parents immigrated to Canada where he started acting as a juvenile. He became the leading man in Charles Frohman's stock company in New York City's Empire Theatre in 1893...
. He composed incidental music for all of Miller's first successes. When Miller came to New York, Stoepel found that Miller was still using his music, so he filed a suit against him and settled for $2,000.
During the 1880-81 season he was musical director of the Adelphi Theatre in London. While in London he wrote an opera called Aldershot.
Around 1884 he became deaf, and apparently moved back to New York. At the time of his death he was working on two more operas, Unita and The Mahdi. The Musical Times obituary mentions that at once time he amassed a fortune of ₤20,000, but lost ₤12,000 during a real estate panic in New York.
Personal
In 1857 he married the actress Matilda HeronMatilda Heron
Matilda Agnes Heron was a popular mid-19th century actress in the United States, best known for her role in the play "Camille."Born in Ireland in 1830, Heron emigrated to the United States in 1842, and lived in Philadelphia. Starting in 1851 she began appearing professionally in plays. In 1853...
. Stoepel and Heron were divorced in 1869. They had one child, Helen Wallace Stoepel, born in 1863, better known as Bijou Heron
Bijou Heron
Bijou Heron was an American stage actress.Born Helen Wallace Stoepel in New York City, New York, the daughter of composer Robert Stoepel and tragedienne Matilda Heron, she was a child actress in the theatre...
, who became an actress herself, and married Robert Stoepel's employer, Henry Miller.
At the end of his life, Robert Auguste Stoepel had been living at 40 West 24th Street. He died at daughter's house, 70 West 37th Street, on October 1, 1887.
Operas
- Aldershot
- Charlemagne
- La sentinelle perdu
- Indiana
- The Mahdi
- The False Prophet, libretto by J. Armoy Knox and Chas. M. Snyder. (1887)
Songs
- Smiles of a Summer Night
- Toujours!
- Le Soldat Mourant (1844) song; translated into English by Jacob Wrey MouldJacob Wrey MouldJacob Wrey Mould was an architect, illustrator, linguist and musician, noted for his contributions to the design and construction of New York City's Central Park...
as The Dying Soldier - Near thee, near thee (1854)
- Serenade (1856)
- The old clock on the stairs (1874) words by Longfellow
- Safe from the wreck! (1880) words by T. Hay Campbell
Works for piano
- Mazurka, on Meyerbeer's opera Le Pardon de Ploermel
- Polka Summer Night in the Woods
- Imperial Green Seal Galop
- Selection, on Donizetti's Grand Opera The Martyrs (II Poliuto)
- The Quadrille of all Nations
- Les Bluets (1844)
- Les Lilas (1844)
- The Sutherland Polka (1844)
- The Cellarius Polkas (1845)
- Souvenirs de Bohême (1845)
- The Timbrel Waltz (1846)
- Chant national hongrois (1850s)
- The Witches in Macbeth (1850)
- The Marco Spada polka (1853) quadrilles based on Daniel AuberDaniel AuberDaniel François Esprit Auber was a French composer.-Biography:The son of a Paris print-seller, Auber was born in Caen in Normandy. Though his father expected him to continue in the print-selling business, he also allowed his son to learn how to play several musical instruments...
's opera - Camille Mazurka (1856) "as played at the New Orleans Gaiety Theatre"
- Fairy star schottisch (1856)
- Première rencontre: Nocturne pour piano (1857)
- The Lester Wallack polka (1862)
- U.S. Army Calls (1862) quadrilles
- Jean Hosmer polka (1865)
- Reminiscences of Leah (1868)
- Frou Frou waltz (1870)
Incidental music and other works
- Ruling Passion (Wallack's Theatre, 1859)
- The Romance of a Poor Young Man (Wallack's Theatre, 1860)
- The Duke's Motto (Niblo's Garden, 1863)
- Columbus Reconstructed (Winter Garden, 1866)
- The Merchant of Venice (revival with Edwin Booth)
- Le Roi Carotte (Grand Opera House, Manhattan, 1872)