Johann Nepomuk Nestroy

Johann Nepomuk Nestroy (Vienna, 1801 – Graz, 1862) was the last and most distinguished of the long tradition of popular Viennese author-actors, a playwright whose work drew on both satire and music. Although he began studying law at the University of Vienna, he abandoned the course without taking a degree in order to devote himself to singing, a vocation already apparent when, as a teenager, he took the solo bass part in a public performance of Handel's Alexander's Feast.

His professional debut came in August 1822, in the role of Sarastro at the Court Opera (Kärntnertortheater). After a season with that company, he spent two years at the German Theatre in Amsterdam, where he broadened a repertoire that included roles by Weber, Mozart, Beethoven and Rossini. Towards the end of that period, comic roles began to take centre stage, a trend that intensified during his years of touring as an actor and singer between 1825 and 1831, in towns and cities such as Brno, Graz, Pressburg, Klagenfurt, Vienna and Lemberg. In autumn 1831 he joined Carl's Theater an der Wien, by which time he had performed some 450 different roles and had also tried his hand at writing.

Most of his works were pieces he wrote for himself, more than eighty in all, and in them music occupied a central place. Until 1841 the average number of songs, ensembles and choruses per work was ten or eleven, but from Einen Jux will er sich machen (1842) onward he reduced singing almost entirely to his own roles, for reasons that are not known with certainty. He also composed parodies of famous operas such as Rossini's Cinderella, Meyerbeer's Robert le diable and Tannhäuser, although some, such as those of Zampa and Martha, were failures. Adolf Müller wrote the music for 41 of his works, and Michael Hebenstreit and Carl Binder for many others.

His legacy endures on the German-language stage and in the historical-critical edition of his works, which includes reductions of the original music for all of them. Later composers also adapted his pieces for the operatic stage, such as Sutermeister with Titus Feuerfuchs and von Einem with Der Zerrissene.