About the work
A musical play in two acts by Wilhelm Kienzl, who also wrote the libretto. It draws on a story by Leopold Florian Meissner about a man wrongly accused of arson. The opera premiered on 4 May 1895 at the Königliches Opernhaus in Berlin, conducted by Karl Muck.
Plot
The novice Mathias loves Martha, niece of the monastery steward Friedrich Engel. When a fire breaks out during their secret meeting, the jealous teacher Johannes Freudhofer blames Mathias, who spends twenty years wrongfully imprisoned. Decades later, the freed Mathias wanders Vienna as a street preacher, the "Evangelimann", and meets the dying Freudhofer, who confesses his crime and begs forgiveness.
Cultural significance
Around 1900 the opera became one of the greatest stage successes in the German-speaking world, translated into sixteen languages and performed more than 5,000 times worldwide. Its tenor aria "Selig sind, die Verfolgung leiden" remains widely known; the full work returns to stages less often but repeatedly, including revivals in Chemnitz (2004), at the Volksoper Vienna (2006) and in Klagenfurt (2012).