Gottlieb Stephanie

Johann Gottlieb Stephanie the Younger (19 February 1741 in Breslau – 23 January 1800 in Vienna) was an Austrian playwright, director and librettist, most famously to Mozart. He came to Vienna during the Seven Years' War as a Prussian prisoner of war. He was appointed to head the National Singspiel, a favourite project of Emperor Joseph II.

Stephanie's adaptation of Christoph Friedrich Bretzner's Entführung has been harshly criticized; E.J. Dent called it "the very worst that he ever set to music." Mozart wrote to his father saying that "you are quite right so far as Stephanie's work is concerned. ... I am well aware that the verse is not of the best."

Works

• Die Entführung aus dem Serail, 1782, Music: Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
• Der Schauspieldirektor, 1786, Music: Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
• Der Doktor und sein Apotheker, 1786, Music: Carl Ditters von Dittersdorf

External links