Abel Seyler (23 August 1730, Liestal – 25 April 1800, Rellingen) was a Swiss-born theatre director and former merchant banker, who was regarded as one of the great theatre principals of 18th century Europe. He played a pivotal role in the development of German theatre and opera, and was considered "the leading patron of German theatre" in his lifetime.Wilhelm Kosch, "Seyler, Abel", in Dictionary of German Biography, eds. Walther Killy and Rudolf Vierhaus, Vol. 9, Walter de Gruyter, 2005, , p. 308 He supported the development of new works and experimental productions, helping to establish Hamburg as a center of theatrical innovation and to establish a publicly funded theater system in Germany. Working with some of Germany's foremost actors and playwrights of his era, he is credited with pioneering a new more realist style of acting,Bettine Menke, Wolfgang Struck (2022), Theatermaschinen – Maschinentheater: Von Mechaniken, Machinationen und Spektakeln (pp. 96–97), transcript Verlag introducing Shakespeare to a German language audience, and with promoting the concept of a national theatre in the tradition of Ludvig Holberg, the Sturm und Drang playwrights, and serious German opera, becoming the "primary agent for change in the German opera scene" in the late 18th century.Anna Albrektson, Fiona Macintosh (2023), Mapping Medea: Revolutions and Transfers 1750-1800 (p. 27), Oxford University Press Already in his lifetime, he was described as "one of German art's most meritorious men."
The son of a Basel Reformed priest, Seyler moved to London and then to Hamburg as a young adult, and established himself as a merchant banker in the 1750s. During the Seven Years' War and its immediate aftermath his bank Seyler & Tillemann engaged in an ever-increasing and complex, "malicious" speculation with financial instruments and went spectacularly bankrupt with enormous debts in the wake of the Amsterdam banking crisis of 1763, resulting in a decade of expansive litigation. Although they were wealthy bankers, Seyler and his business partner were "in no way representatives of the Hamburg bourgeoisie." A flamboyant bon vivant who was regarded with suspicion in Hamburg, Seyler symbolized a new and more aggressive form of capitalism.
Seyler's admiration for the tragic actress Sophie Hensel (Seyler), who later became his second wife, led him to devote himself entirely to theatre from 1767 onwards. He used his remaining funds to become the main shareholder, benefactor and effective leader of the idealistic Hamburg National Theatre, that became a leading cultural institution in Germany. His theatre employed Lessing as the world's first dramaturg, culminating in the work Hamburg Dramaturgy that defined the field and gave it its name. In 1769, Seyler founded the travelling Seyler Theatre Company, which became one of the most famous theatre companies of Europe during the period 1769–79 and regarded as "the best theatre company in Germany at that time.""Herzogin Anna Amalie von Weimar und ihr Theater," in Robert Keil (ed.), Goethe's Tagebuch aus den Jahren 1776–1782, Veit, 1875, p. 69 The company was to a large degree centered around his would-be wife and his close collaborator Konrad Ekhof, Germany's most famous actress and actor at the time, respectively. He initially held the Hanoverian privilege as theatre director and his company later stayed for three years at the court of Duchess Anna Amalia in Weimar and for a year at the ducal court in Gotha. His company's arrival in Weimar is regarded as the earliest starting point of Weimar Classicism. From 1779 to 1781 he was the founding artistic director of the Mannheim National Theatre. He commissioned works such as Sturm und Drang by Klinger (which gave its name to the era), Ariadne auf Naxos by Benda and Alceste by Schweitzer, considered "the first serious German opera."Francien Markx, E. T. A. Hoffmann, Cosmopolitanism, and the Struggle for German Opera, p. 32, BRILL, 2015,
Seyler mostly focused on the artistic, economic and administrative management of his theatrical company; his own lack of a background as an actor and his former profession as a merchant banker, made him stand out among the theatre principals of his era in a profession that was just starting to gain respectability. In this sense, Seyler occupies a transitional position in the history of theatre leadership. Neither an actor-manager in the traditional sense nor a court-appointed patron, he anticipated the later separation of managerial, artistic, and directing functions that would become characteristic of the modern theatre director and producer. His wife's 1789 Singspiel Huon and Amanda (or Oberon), set to new music by Paul Wranitzky, was performed by Emanuel Schikaneder's theater troupe and by the Weimar court theater under the direction of Goethe, and was a major influence on The Magic Flute, establishing the Schikaneder theatre's tradition of fairy tale operas. The principal founder of biochemistry and molecular biology, Felix Hoppe-Seyler, was an adopted son of his grandson.
Background and childhood
Abel Seyler was born in 1730 in Liestal outside Basel in Switzerland. He was the son of the Reformed clergyman, Dr.theol. Abel Seyler (Seiler) (the elder) (1684–1767), who was parish priest of Frenkendorf-Munzach in Liestal from 1714 to 1763, and Anna Katharina Burckhardt (1694–1773). He grew up in a learned and pious Reformed family and was descended from or closely related to all of the most prominent patrician families of Basel on both his parents' sides. His mother belonged to the noted Burckhardt family, that was considered the most powerful family in the canton of Basel during the 17th and early 18th century.Johann Jakob Brodbeck, Geschichte der Stadt Liestal, A. Brodbeck, 1865 He was a paternal grandson of the theologian Friedrich Seyler and Elisabeth Socin, a member of an Italian-origined noble family, and he was named for his great-grandfather, the Basel judge and envoy to the French court Abel Socin (1632–1695). He was also descended from the Merian and Faesch families. He was a matrilineal descendant of Justina Froben, daughter of the humanist Johann Froben; he thus belonged to the same matriline as Anna Catharina Bischoff. He had a sister, Elisabeth Seiler (1715–1798), married to parish priest Daniel Merian.Auszug Stamm Seiler in / aus Liestal, 2014 He was distantly related to Cardinal Joseph Fesch, Napoleon's uncle; they were both descended from the Basel silk merchant, politician and diplomat Johann Rudolf Faesch (died 1659), who was Burgomaster of Basel and led the city's pro-French faction.
Although his parents belonged to families that were highly respected in Basel, Abel Seyler grew up in rather modest material circumstances. His father's congregation was small, and the parish church and rectory were in poor condition. His father also failed in his attempt to have the church restored. As a parish priest, his father did not have a fixed income but presumably lived off payments for church services, gifts and occasional government contributions. It was only when he retired in 1763 that his father received a fixed income, a pension of 600 pounds.
Seyler as a merchant banker
As a young man, Seyler left Basel first for London and then for Hamburg, where he was active as a merchant banker until 1766. At the time Hamburg was emerging as one of the world's foremost centres of trade and finance, a position it would retain until the end of the 18th century. With his business partners Johann Martin Tillemann and Edwin Müller, he founded the related companies Seyler & Tillemann and Müller & Seyler, which engaged in an ever-increasing and complex speculation with financial instruments during the Seven Years' War in the 1750s and early 1760s. Seyler & Tillemann had close ties to the bank of the brothers De Neufville in Amsterdam, and has been considered one of the most speculative and immoral banks of the era. In 1761 Seyler & Tillemann, acting as agents for their close business associate Heinrich Carl von Schimmelmann, leased the mint factory in Rethwisch from the impoverished Frederick Charles, Duke of Schleswig-Holstein-Sonderburg-Plön, a member of a cadet branch of the Danish royal family, to produce debased coins in the final years of the Seven Years' War. Seyler & Tillemann went bankrupt in the wake of the Amsterdam banking crisis of 1763 with 3–4 million Mark Banco in debts, an enormous sum. Expansive civil litigation relating to the bankruptcy was initiated in 1763 and went on until 1773, and the case reached the Imperial Cameral Tribunal. Much criticism was directed at Seyler and Tillemann's business ethics and extravagant lifestyle.
Mary Lindemann notes, quoting from the 1765–1773 Imperial Cameral Tribunal proceedings and the memoirs of John Parish:
[An] important case against several business partners reached the Imperial Cameral Tribunal (Reichskammergericht) in 1765. It offers an excellent perspective on "deceitful schemes" and especially on the bill-jobbing of two companies: Müller & Seyler and Seyler & Tillemann. Although the voices presented here are those of their creditors, the documents nonetheless reveal how contemporaries viewed the business practices of "malicious bankrupts" and how these practices assumed particularly baleful shapes in their minds. The creditors’ lawyers laid out the background to the case in considerable detail. Müller and Seyler were new men; Edwin Müller had come from Hanover several years before and Abel Seyler had been born in one of the Swiss cantons. Both had, however, "learned their business" and married in Hamburg.Seyler had in fact married in Hanover, although he either already lived in Hamburg or settled there shortly afterwards "If one could trust their books," their actual starting capital amounted to no more than thirty-eight thousand Mk. Bco., "of which, however, well over half had been frittered away through the acquisition of furniture for two households, [for the purchase of] clothes, jewels, silver plate, and other needs for themselves, their wives, and their children, [and also for] carriages, horses, and so on." Their business was undercapitalized from the beginning. In the 1750s, this seemed a minor problem because credit was easy to obtain. When the cash flow failed, they tried to acquire money quickly through bill-jobbing. Because their ready funds could not cover their expenses and debts, theirs became "the most audacious [form of] Windhandel." As their business increased—as they took on ever more commissions in goods for import and export, invested in a sugar refinery, and lent money to several people—they simultaneously pursued their bill-jobbing and expanded it markedly.
In 1757, they acquired a new partner, named Tillemann, who, however, contributed "not one Creutzer" to their capital, but that did not stop them from vigorously extending their business. Although their enterprises seemed to prosper in the late 1750s, they did so only "at the expense of others [...] because they always lacked adequate funds.” Bill-jobbing was a dangerous game “in which even the most careful [practitioner] usually loses about 10% and sometimes even 12–14%.” The partners then conjured up a fictive company under Erwin Müller’s signature “and informed the world that he had thus established his own firm.” Certainly, commented the lawyer drily, “that was a fine business that honored its inventor, which, however, no one who values truth and honesty could condone!”