About the work
A comic opera in three acts for which Albert Lortzing also wrote the libretto, freely based on Friedrich Wilhelm Ziegler's 1790 comedy "Liebhaber und Nebenbuhler in einer Person," in which Lortzing himself had often played the role of Count Liebenau as an actor. It premiered in 1846 at the Theater an der Wien, effectively serving as Lortzing's audition piece for the post of Kapellmeister at that house.
Plot
Count von Liebenau takes work under the name "Konrad" as a journeyman at the workshop of gunsmith Stadinger, hoping to win his daughter Marie and test whether she loves him for himself alone. Staging a fake abduction from which he "rescues" her, he forces Stadinger to consent to the marriage. In the end the old master sees through the ruse but forgives it and blesses the couple.
Cultural significance
The Vienna success won Lortzing the post of Kapellmeister at the Theater an der Wien in 1846. Alongside "Zar und Zimmermann" and "Der Wildschütz," "Der Waffenschmied" remains among his most frequently performed comic operas in German-speaking theatres today.