Marcellus Schiffer

Marcellus Schiffer was the name used by Otto Schiffer (20 June 1892 – 24 August 1932), a German cabaret writer, graphic designer, painter and librettist.

Life Schiffer was born in Berlin. His father, Siegfried Schiffer (1849–1897), was a Jewish timber merchant who died when the boy was age five. From now on, Schiffer was much in demand as a writer of musical cuplés in Weimar Germany.

Similarly fruitful was his relationship with the composer Paul Hindemith. This gave rise, in 1929, to the opera News of the Day (Neues vom Tage). He had written the libretto of this short opera for Hindemith a couple of years earlier.

Together with the collaborations highlighted above, Schiffer also wrote libretti for Friedrich Hollaender, Rudolf Nelson, Werner Richard Heymann and Allan Gray.

Death On 24 August 1932, Schiffer, who seems to have suffered from depression, ended his life by taking an overdose of sleeping tablets.