These short evaluations of the Bonn premieres of Mozart’s Don Giovanni and Figaro—both given in German adaptations—appear in Reichard’s Theater-Kalender for 1791. The premieres took place in the palace theater of the Elector and Archbishop of Cologne, Archduke Maximilian Franz, youngest brother of Emperor Joseph II. Partial transcriptions of the evaluations are given in Dokumente (338), omitting the words in blue above. Deutsch provides little context, writing only that the Bonn premiere of Figaro took place “[u]m Neujahr 1790” (around New Year’s; Dokumente, 316); he does not attempt to give a precise date. (On the Bonn premiere of Don Giovanni, see our entry for 13 Oct 1789.)

However, it is possible to determine the date of the premiere of Figaro with near certainty. Upon assuming the post of Elector in 1784, Max Franz had closed the court theater and dismissed the company of Gustav Friedrich Wilhelm Großmann (see our entry for 13 Oct 1789). The renovated theater reopened on 3 Jan 1789 with a new resident company. The company initially gave a short season running until 23 May, just before Pentecost (31 May); Mozart’s Die Entführung aus dem Serail was performed twice during that season. Following a summer break, the company offered a second season, from 13 Oct 1789 to 23 Feb 1790; this season was broken off earlier than planned when news arrived in Bonn of the death on 20 Feb of Joseph II in Vienna. The boundary dates for both seasons are documented in the Theater-Kalender for 1791 (198–200).

The Theater-Kalender also lists the complete repertory of the Bonn theater for both short seasons, repeating titles for repeat performances. The list gives no dates apart from those for the beginning and end of the seasons, but the titles appear to be in chronological order (ThK 1791, 198–200). We also know that the plan for the second season was to give performances on Tuesdays and Saturdays (see the review of the Bonn premiere of Don Giovanni on 13 Oct 1789). Knowing the planned days of performance and having a chronological list of all titles performed, it is possible to reconstruct the performance calendar with a high degree of confidence.

The list in the Theater-Kalender contains 42 titles for the period 13 Oct 1789 to 23Feb 1790; over that span there were 39µTuesdays and Saturdays. The theater would probably or certainly have been closed on three of those days: Tue, 1 Dec 1789 (after news had reached Bonn two days earlier of the death of Max Franz’s sister, Archduchess Maria Anna); Tue, 8 Dec 1789, the feast of the Immaculate Conception; and Sat, 26 Dec 1789, St. Stephen’s Day. This leaves 36 possible performance days. Six of the 42µtitles on the list in the Theater-Kalender are short works (mostly one act) that would have been combined with a longer main work as a double bill. This makes 36 performance events (6 double bills and 30 individual works) and 36 possible performance days, an exact match.

Three dates in the table are directly confirmed by reports in Gazette de Bonn. The premiere of Don Giovanni received an exceptionally positive review in the issue of 15 Oct 1789; the review verifies that the performance took place on Tue, 13 Oct (for the full text of the review and additional commentary, see our entry for that date). A report in the issue of Tue, 10 Nov 1789 notes that “le Bourguemaitre” (Der Bürgermeister) would be performed “aujourd’hui” (today), confirming that date; it goes on to say that Gotter and Benda’s Romeo und Julie had been performed the previous “samedi” (Sat, 7 Nov), with Christiane Keilholz making a tremendous impression in the title role (for the full text of that review, see our entry for 6 & 13 Jun 1790). Confirmation that Der Bürgermeister was performed on 10 Nov is of particular importance for establishing the date of the Figaro premiere, because Figaro immediately follows Der Bürgermeister in the Theater-Kalender’s list of titles. Assuming that the next performance after Der Bürgermeister fell on Sat, 14 Nov, according to the usual schedule, the work performed on that day would have been Die Hochzeit des Figaro.

Two reports in Gazette de Bonn seem to suggest departures from the expected sequence of Tuesdays and Saturdays. The issue of Thu, 22 Oct 1789 includes a report from Bonn dated “le 20 Octobre” (a Tuesday) stating that “le mariage par une feuille périodique” (Die Heirath durchs Wochenblatt) had been given “hier” (yesterday), thus seeming to imply Mon, 19 Oct, rather than Tue, 20 Oct. However, on closer examination, the performance seems in fact to have taken place on 20 Oct, as per the usual schedule. The full report reads:

⁣               DE BONN, le 20 Octobre.
     On a donné hier au théatre u[n]e pièce
intitulé le mariage par une feuille pério-
dique, comédie à tiroir où à scènes déta-
chées dans le gout du Mercure galant. Le
directeur Mr. Steiger, qui faisoit le rôle
du soldat ivre a fait une très heureuse
application à la prise de Belgrade, que
la Gazette de Bonn avoit annoncée le
matin même, cette saillie, amenée si à-
propos a été fort goûtée du public, qui
y a répondu par des applaudissemens re-
doublés.
[Gazette de Bonn, no. clxix, Thu, 22 Oct 1789 (4)]

⁣               FROM BONN, 20 October.
     Yesterday a play was given in the theater
entitled Le mariage par une feuille périodique,
comédie à tiroirs, with detached scenes in
the style of the Mercure galant. The director
Monsieur Steiger, who played the role of the
drunken soldier, made a very timely reference
to the taking of Belgrade, which the Gazette
de Bonn had announced that very morning;
this quip, so appropriately added, was greatly
enjoyed by the audience, who responded
to it with redoubled applause.

The report on the “taking of Belgrade” (actually the taking of its suburbs on 30 Sep 1789) was reported in the issue of Gazette de Bonn on Tue, 20 Oct 1789; there was no issue on 19 Oct. Thus the performance in which Steiger made his interpolation must have taken place on 20 Oct, and is not an exception to the sequence of Tuesdays and Saturdays. In this case, then, the word “hier” in the report dated “20 Octobre” seems to have meant “this past day” rather than “yesterday.”

The issue of Gazette de Bonn for Tue, 29 Dec 1789 reports that “Arianne à Naxos” (Ariadne auf Naxos) and “souliers mordorés” (Die schöne Schusterinn) had been performed “hier” (yesterday). In this case (unlike the previous one), the dateline of the report is the same as the date of the issue. Because it appears that the Gazette was generally issued in the morning, before any theatrical performances in the evening, it appears that the usual sequence of Tuesdays and Saturdays was indeed interrupted for some reason, and that these two works were performed on Mon, 28 Dec. The report in Gazette de Bonn does, however, confirm that the works appeared together as a double bill, as hypothesized in the table above.

In spite of this one discrepancy in the schedule for the second short season, there is no reason to doubt that the Bonn premiere of Die Hochzeit des Figaro took place on Sat, 14 Nov 1789. The opera was performed four times in all in Bonn that season; if our reconstruction is correct, then the other performances were on 21 Nov and 22 Dec 1789, and 19 Jan 1790. Figaro was the only work given four times over that span: Don Giovanni was performed three times (on 13 Oct and 12 Dec 1789, and 5 Jan 1790), and no other work was performed more than twice. The capsule evaluation of Figaro in the Theater-Kalender is also the longest and most positive for any work in either of the short seasons. The mixed evaluation of Don Giovanni (“Die Musik gefiel den Kennern sehr. Die Handlung mißfiel.”) should be read in the context of the rave review in Gazette de Bonn (see our entry for 13 Oct 1789); that Don Giovanni was performed three times also suggests that it was well received.

Seven of the 42 performances of individual works during this season were operas by Mozart, either Don Giovanni or Die Hochzeit des Figaro. The frequency of performance indicates that both operas were popular with the Bonn audience. The preponderance of Mozart during the season (and taking into account the two performances of Die Entführung aus dem Serail in the previous season) may also reflect Max Franz’s particular interest in the composer. (For more on Max Franz and Mozart, see our entries for 8 Oct 1782, 18 Dec 1791, and 23 Dec 1791.)

The evident popularity of Figaro in Bonn contrasts sharply with the opera’s initial reception in Mannheim, where it was performed just once in 1790 (probably under Mozart’s direction; see our entry for 24 Oct 1790), then not again until 29 Jun 1794, when it was again performed just once, followed by an even longer hiatus until 4 Jan 1801. We have suggested that the problem in Mannheim might have been the German adaptation of the libretto by Christian August Vulpius, whose translations of the sung texts in Figaro range from awkward to unsingable. Yet it seems likely that this same version was used in Bonn, where the opera was a hit: Vulpius’s version was published in Cologne in 1789, the same year as the Bonn premiere (for further discussion and facsimiles from the Cologne edition, see our entry for 24 Oct 1790). Another problem in Mannheim might have been the differences between the play and the opera. The Mannheim audience was well acquainted with Beaumarchais’s Le mariage de Figaro, which had already been given 11 times in a German translation by the time of the premiere of Mozart’s opera, and was very popular. In contrast, Beaumarchais’s play had never been performed in Bonn, and much of the audience would have been experiencing the plot for the first time.

No known source documents the cast of the premiere production of Figaro in Bonn, but it is possible to make informed guesses based on our knowledge of the singers in the company, their voice types, and other roles they sang (for additional information on the singers in the Bonn company, see our entry for 13 Oct 1789):

• By the time of the premiere of Figaro, the Bonn company had two bass singers, Joseph Lux (1756–1818) and Johann Baptist Spitzeder (also Spitzeter, 1764–1842). One of these men would have sung Figaro in the Bonn production and the other Bartolo. Lux had sung Bartolo in the Frankfurt premiere of Figaro on 11 Oct 1788 (Mohr 1968, 94), so seems likely to have reprised the role in Bonn. Spitzeder (born on 24 Dec 1764 in Salzburg) was only 24 at the time of the Bonn premiere, and thus a more natural choice for Figaro than for Bartolo. On the other hand, Lux was especially known for his comic acting, and he probably sang Leporello in the Bonn production of Don Giovanni. It was not (and is not) uncommon for singers to appear as both Leporello and Figaro. So Lux should probably not be ruled out as Figaro in Bonn.
  
• Two sopranos in the Bonn company are known to have sung Susanna in productions elsewhere. Magdalena Willmann (1771–1801) had sung the role in the Frankfurt premiere of Figaro on 11 Oct 1788 (see our entry for that date, and Mohr 1968, 92–94), and Susanna is included on an undated list of Willmann’s roles made around the time of her engagement by the Bonn company (Reisinger et al. 2018, 146–47). Because she knew the role already, she would have been an obvious choice for Susanna in Bonn. Willmann had been in Vienna with her father and siblings during the premiere run of Le nozze di Figaro in 1786, and would almost certainly have first experienced the opera there (for more on Magdalena, see our entry for 11 Oct 1788; her older sister Walburga may have been a student of Mozart; see our entry for 13 Jul 1791).
  
  Soprano Christiane Keilholz (1764–1820), like several other members of the new Bonn company, was a refugee from the collapsed company of Christian Wilhelm Klos, and she was a member of the Bonn company for both short seasons in 1789/1790, before joining the Nationaltheater in Mannheim. We know that Keilholz made a guest appearance as Susanna in Frankfurt on 25 Sep 1790 with the company of the Mainz Nationaltheater, and a month later she sang the role in the Mannheim premiere of Figaro on 24 Oct 1790, a performance that Mozart probably directed. We have no evidence that Christiane Keilholz sang Susanna before 25 Sep 1790, but she cannot be ruled out for the role Bonn. Even if she did not sing Susanna in that production, she would certainly have had the opportunity to become familiar with the opera and the role there. (On Christiane Keilholz, see our entry for 6 & 13 Jun 1790.)
  
• The role of the Countess in the Bonn production seems likely to have been taken by Veronika Bekenkam (Bekenkamp, b. 1754). Bekenkam had been with Großmann’s company in Bonn, and she remained in the city after Großmann’s company was dismissed in 1784. She is known to have performed the role of the Königin in Lilla (a German adaptation of Martín y Soler’s Una cosa rara) in Bonn in the season running from 27 Dec 1790 to 7 Mar 1791 (ThK 1792, 338). With two younger sopranos in the Bonn company, Magdalena Willmann and Christiane Keilholz, vying for younger romantic roles like Susanna, Bekenkam seems the more likely choice for a noble and mature role like the Countess. However, we cannot entirely rule out Christiane Keilholz, as her repertoire generally tended toward serious and noble female parts rather than comic ones (Konstanze and Donna Anna became staples of her repertoire); her appearance as Susanna in Frankfurt and Mannheim was something of an exception for her. On the other hand, Keilholz is not known ever to have sung the Countess anywhere else.
  
• Count Almaviva in the Bonn Figaro was probably sung by Friedrich Müller (dates unknown) or Carl Demmer (1766–after 1824). Both were high baritones who sometimes took romantic tenor leads. Demmer is known later to have sung the Count in Weimar (see the poster for 24 Oct 1793), so we may tentatively suggest that he knew the role from having sung it already in the Bonn production.
  
• Cherubino in Bonn may have been sung by the soubrette Dorothea Keilholz († 1804), younger sister of Christiane. Dorothea went on to sing Cherubino in the Mannheim premiere of the Figaro just eleven months later (see our entry for 24 Oct 1790; for more on Dorothea Keilholz, see our entry for 6 & 13 Jun 1790). However, Christiane Brandt (1761–1826), wife of Christoph Brandt (a tenor in the Bonn ensemble), was also a soubrette and might also have sung the role.
  
• Suzanne Neefe, wife of Christian Gottlob Neefe, specialized in mother roles in both operas and plays, and she probably sang Marcellina in the Bonn production.
  
• The Bonn ensemble had two tenors at the time of the premiere of Figaro, Christoph Hermann Joseph Brandt (1747–1818) and Johann Jakob Dardenne (also Dardener, b. 1763 in Bonn). Brandt, who was his early 40s at the time of the premiere, seems a more natural fit than the much younger Dardenne for the roles of Basilio and Don Gusmann (Curzio) in the Bonn production of Figaro, which are likely to have been doubled by one singer.
  
• The role of Hannchen (Barbarina) in the Bonn production was probably taken by one of the children in the company. The roster for Bonn in the Theater-Kalender for 1791 lists three girls: Therese Brandt (1780–after 1821), and Neefe’s daughters Luise (Louise, 1779–1846) and Felice (Felicitas, 1782–1808). All three girls were still very young at the time of the premiere. Luise Neefe is mentioned favorably for her performances in singspiel in subsequent seasons in Bonn, so she may be the most likely Hannchen in 1789, but this is just a guess.

In summary, our best guesses for the cast of Figaro in Bonn are: