Biography
Reinhard Keiser was born on 9 January 1674 (baptised 22 January) in Teuchern near Weißenfels and received his musical training from 1685 at the Thomasschule in Leipzig, among others under Johann Schelle. After early success as an opera composer at the ducal theatre in Braunschweig, he moved to Hamburg around 1695/97, where he worked until his death as house composer of the Oper am Gänsemarkt and also directed or leased the theatre for periods between 1703 and 1707. With roughly 100 stage works – sources give figures ranging from about 70 to over 100 – he shaped the repertoire of the leading German opera house of his time and influenced younger contemporaries such as George Frideric Handel and Georg Philipp Telemann. His colleague Johann Mattheson called him "the greatest opera composer in the world." Between 1721 and 1727 Keiser also served as Royal Danish Kapellmeister in Copenhagen, before settling in 1728 as cantor of Hamburg Cathedral, where he died on 12 September 1739.
On Stagelog
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