Angelo Neumann

Josef Angelo Neumann (18 August 1838 – 20 December 1910) was an Austrian theatre director, opera impresario, and opera singer. He began his career as an operatic baritone in Krakow in 1859, and spent the next several years performing at a variety of European theatres as a guest performer. From 1862 until 1876 he was a member of the Vienna Hofoper where he was present for stagings of Tannhäuser and Lohengrin directed by the composer Richard Wagner in 1875. This began an association between Neumann and Wagner which extended until Wagner's death in 1883.

Neumann became a celebrated stage director of Wagner's operas; beginning his work in that capacity while he was co-managing director of the Leipzig Opera with August Förster from 1876 to 1882. He was responsible for popularizing the Ring cycle on the global stage. He organized the first stagings of the Ring outside Bayreuth, presenting the complete Ring in Leipzig (1878 & later repetitions), Berlin (1881), and London (1882). With his own opera company, the Richard Wagner-Theater, he gave a lauded European tour of the Ring in 1882–1883 which brought Wagner a level of fame and fortune that the composer had previously not experienced. Wagner died in the midst of this tour. Neumann's Jewish ancestry and Richard and Cosima Wagner's anti-semitic beliefs led to complications in their relationship which have been the subject of study by scholars. Neumann later organized a tour of the Ring to Russia in 1889, and published a memoir, Erinnerungen an Richard Wagner (1907, English Memories of Richard Wagner).

Neumann worked as a stage director at the (1883–1885) prior to his appointment as artistic director of the German Theatre ( a.k.a the Estates Theatre) in Prague in 1885. Early in his tenure construction began on a new venue for that organization, the New German Theatre (NGT, now the Prague State Opera), and he transitioned into the NGT when it opened in 1888. He remained there until his death in 1910. He is credited as instigating a golden age of theatre in Prague, and turning the city into a major center for Wagner.

Biography Early life and opera career (1838–1876) Neumann was born in Vienna on 18 August 1838. His family was Jewish. He originally intended to pursue a career in medicine before he trained as a singer. He studied voice in his native city with Therese Stilke-Sessi. Many of the musicians he engaged for the RWT tour had worked with Neumann previously in Leipzig. Seidl was engaged as conductor, and principal singers included Marianne Brandt, Hedwig Reicher-Kindermann, Katharina Klafsky, Amalie Materna, Emil Scaria, Anton Schott, Georg Unger, Heinrich Vogl, and Therese Vogl among others.